R.   W.   EMERSON 

EDINBURGH,  1848. 

'iotypedfrom  a  painting  by  DAVID  SCOTT 


THE 


GENIUS    AND    CHARACTER 

OF 

EMERSON 


LECTURES  A  T   THE  I  CONCORD  SCHOOL 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 


EDITED    BY 

F.     B.     SANBORN 


'<£ 


BOSTON 

JAMES  R.   OSGOOD   AND   COMPANY 
.1885 


Copyright,  1884, 
BY  JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved. 


JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


A.    BRONSON    ALCOTT, 
77/.51    FOUNDER 

OF 

THE   CONCORD   SCHOOL   OF   PHILOSOPHY, 

&l)i$  IBolttme  \%  In^cribcb 

BY  ITS  AUTHORS. 

CONCORD,  MASSACHUSETTS, 
October  10,  1884. 


PREFACE. 


THE  Faculty  of  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy 
have  preferred  until  now  not  to  make  any  formal 
publication  of  the  lectures  read  at  their  summer  ses 
sions,  leaving  each  lecturer  free  to  print  his  own  if  he 
chose.  Many  of  the  lectures  have  thus  been  printed, 
in  volumes  or  in  magazines ;  and  the  newspapers  have 
each  year  published  reports,  more  or  less  imperfect, 
of  the  lectures  and  conversations.  In  1882  one  of  the 
journalists  (Mr.  BRIDGMAN),  who  had  been  most  care 
ful  in  his  reports,  was  authorized  to  publish  a  volume 
of  abstracts  (in  which  were  included  a  few  complete 
addresses  and  poems)  under  the  title  of  "  Concord 
Lectures  on  Philosophy,"  which  appeared  early  in 
1883.  The  present  volume,  however,  is  the  first 
which  has  been  published  by  the  School  itself,  —  as 
an  indication  of  its  method  of  discussion  as  well  as  in 
tribute  to  the  memory  of  its  most  illustrious  teacher. 
It  contains  all  the  Essays  and  Poems  read  in  the 
special  course  of  1884  on  "  The  Genius  and  Character 
of  Emerson"  (except  that  of  Mr.  ALBEE  on  "Emerson 


vi  PREFACE. 

as  an  Essayist,"  which  the  author  has  withheld  for 
publication  elsewhere),  and  also  two  Poems  read  at  the 
session  of  1882.  The  lectures  on  Immortality  are  not 
included,  and  will  not  be  published  by  the  School. 
Mr.  FISKE'S  lecture  has  been  printed  in  a  volume  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.,  and  those  by  Dr.  PEABODY, 
Dr.  HARRIS,  Dr.  HOLLAND,  and  Mr.  DAVIDSON  will 
doubtless  be  printed  by  the  authors. 

In  quoting  from  Emerson's  poems  in  this  volume, 
the  various  essayists  have  cited  the  lines  in  the  form 
and  manner  they  thought  best,  —  one  sometimes  re 
peating  in  another  guise  or  connection  what  his  col 
league  had  before  cited.  The  editor  has  allowed  these 
quotations  to  stand  as  they  were  read, — referring  the 
reader  to  the  different  editions  of  Emerson's  poems 
for  the  text  as  the  poet  printed  it. 

The  heliotype  of  Emerson  in  this  volume  is  from 
a  photograph,  by  permission  of  the  Concord  Library, 
of  David  Scott's  portrait,  representing  Emerson  as 
he  stood  before  his  Scotch  audiences  in  the  winter 
of  1847-1848 ;  painted  at  Edinburgh  in  1848,  and 
never  before  copied.  The  view  of  the  Orchard  House 
and  Hillside  Chapel  was  taken  in  1881  by  Mr.  E. 
Chamberlain,  of  Med field,  through  whose  courtesy  it 
is  here  printed  as  the  best  representation  of  the 
rural  environment  of  our  School  which  has  yet  been 
made. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

THE  CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY    . 

I.   EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.    Mrs.  E.  D.  Cheney  .     .     . 

II.  EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  —  Passages  from  the  Diary 

and  Correspondence  of  Mr.  Alcott 36 

III.  EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.    Julian  Hawthorne    .      68 

IV.  A  ERENCH    VIEW    OF    EMERSON.     M.   Rene  de 

Poyen  Belleisle • 

V.  EMERSON'S  RELIGION.    Dr.  C.  A.  Bartol         .    .    109 
VI.   EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.    Miss  E.  P.  Peabody     .     146 
VII.  EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.    F.  B.  Sanlorn  .     .    1/3 
VI11.   POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON: 

1.  Miss  Emma  Lazarus 

2.  Ellery  Channing 216 

8.  F.  B.  Sanlorn 22i 

4.  Mrs.  E.  C.  Kinney      .... 

IX.  EMERSON'S  ETHICS.    Edwin  D.  Mead 233 

X.  EMERSON'S   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY.      Mrs.  Julia 

Ward  Howe  2SG 


VI  Ji  CONTENTS. 

XL   EMERSON'S  VIEW  OP  NATIONALITY.     George  Willis 

Coolce  .......     ......     .     .     310 

XII.  EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.     William  T. 

Harris     .......     .......     339 

XIII.  EMERSON  AS  SEEN  FROM  INDIA.     Protap  Chunder 

Mozoomdar  ............          355 

XIV.  EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.     William  T.  Harris     .     372 
XV.  EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  GOETHE  AND  CARLYLE. 

William  T.  Harris     ..........     386 

XVI.   ION  :   A  MONODY.    A.  Bronson  Alcott    ....     420 


INDEX 


THE  COXCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


A  BRIEF  sketch  of  the  origin  and  purpose  of  this 
institution  may  properly  be  given  here,  since  it  was 
the  last  enterprise  of  a  general  character  in  which 
Mr.  EMERSON  engaged,  and  derived  a  portion  of  its 
interest  from  his  connection  with  it.  This  connec 
tion  was  not  very  close,  however,  since  its  opening 
was  delayed  until  those  later  years  of  his  life  when 
he  withdrew  from  an  active  part  even  in  conversa 
tion;  but  he  was  fully  cognizant  of  its  aims,  and 
in  the  most  friendly  relation  to  its  founders,  the 
chief  of  whom  was  Mr.  ALCOTT.  It  had  been  the 
hope  of  Mr.  ALCOTT  for  many  years  to  establish  in 
the  town  of  his  chosen  residence  a  conversational 
school  of  philosophy  and  literature;  and  the  collec 
tion  of  a  library  by  him  and  his  English  friends  in 
1842  had  reference  to  such  an  institution.  But  cir 
cumstances  were  unfavorable  until,  in  1878,  the  visit 
of  Dr.  JONES  of  Illinois,  and  the  conversations  in 
which  he  participated,  suggested  to  Mr.  ALCOTT  and 


x  CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

his  friends  that  the  time  had  come  for  announcing 
the  enterprise.  Accordingly,  in  the  spring  of  1879, 
under  the  advice  and  with  the  co-operation  of  Mr. 
EMERSON,  the  late  Professor  PEIRCE,  of  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  Mrs.  CHENEY,  Professor  HARRIS,  and  other 
friends  of  Mr.  ALCOTT,  the  public,  or  such  as  chose  to 
come,  were  invited  to  the  first  session  of  the  School, 
which  was  opened  in  Mr.  ALCOTT'S  study,  at  the  Or 
chard  House,  now  the  residence  of  Professor  HARRIS. 
The  attendance  much  exceeded  the  expectation  of  the 
Faculty,  although  the  session  was  longer  than  has 
since  been  found  expedient,  —  the  term  being  six 
weeks,  and  the  chief  lecturers  five  in  number,  occupy 
ing  the  five  week-days  before  Saturday,  which  was 
given  up  to  single  lectures  on  general  topics.  Dur 
ing  the  next  three  years  the  sessions  were  five  weeks ; 
in  1882  and  1883,  four  weeks  ;  and  in  1884,  two 
weeks.  The  Programme  in  the  successive  years  was 
as  follows:  — 

FIRST  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME.     1879. 

Mr.  A.  BRONSON  ALCOTT.  —  1.  Welcome,  and  plan  of  future 
conversations.  2.  The  Powers  of  the  Person  in  the  de 
scending  scale.  3.  The  same  in  the  ascending  scale.  4.  In 
carnation.  5.  The  Powers  of  Personality  in  detail.  6. 
The  Origin  of  Evil.  7.  The  Lapse  into  Evil.  8.  The 
Return  from  the  Lapse  (the  Atonement).  9.  Life  Eternal. 
10.  Valedictory. 

Dr.  WILLIAM  T.  HARRIS. — 1.  How  Philosophical  Knowing 
differs  from  all  other  forms  of  Knowing  ;  the  Five  In 
tentions  of  the  mind.  2.  The  Discovery  of  the  First 


COXCORD  SCHOOL   OF  PHILOSOPHY.          xi 

Principle,  and  its  Relation  to  the  Universe.  3.  Fate  and 
Freedom.  4.  The  conscious  and  unconscious  First  Prin 
ciple  in  relation  to  human  life.  5.  The  Personality  of 
God.  6.  The  Immortality  of  the  Soul.  7.  Physiological 
Psychology.  8.  The  Method  of  study  in  Speculative  Phi 
losophy.  9.  Art,  Religion,  and  Philosophy  in  relation  to 
each  other  and  to  man.  10.  The  Dialectic. 

Mrs.  EDNAH  D.  CHENEY.  —  1.  The  general  subject  of  Art. 
2.  Greek  Art.  3.  Early  Italian  Art.  4.  Italian  Art.  5.  Mi 
chael  Angelo.  6.  Spanish  Art.  7.  German  Art.  S.Albert 
Diirer.  9.  French  Art.  10.  Contemporaneous  Art. 

Dr.  H.  K.  JONES.  —  1.  General  content  of  the  Platonic  Phi 
losophy.  2.  The  Apology  of  Socrates.  3.  The  Platonic 
idea  of  Church  and  State.  4.  The  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 

5.  Reminiscence  as  related  to  the  Pre-existence  of  the  Soul. 

6.  Pre-existence.     7.  The  Human  Body.     8.  The  Repub 
lic.     9.  The  Material  Body.    10.  Education. 

Mr.  DAVID  A.  WASSON. —  1.  Social  Genesis  and  Texture. 
2.  The  Nation.  3.  Individualism  as  a  Political  Principle. 
4.  Public  Obligation.  5.  Sovereignty.  6.  Absolutism 
crowned  and  uncrowned.  7.  Representation.  8.  Rights. 
9.  The  Making  of  Freedom.  10.  The  Political  Spirit 
of  76. 

Professor  BENJAMIN  PEIRCE.  —  1.  Ideality  in  Science.  2.  Cos 
mogony. 

Mr.  T.  W.  HIGGINSON.  —  1.  The  Birth  of  American  Litera 
ture.  2.  Literature  in  a  Republic. 

Mr.  THOMAS  DAVIDSON.  —  1.  The  History  of  Athens  as  re 
vealed  in  its  topography  and  monuments.  2.  The  Same, 
continued. 

Mr.  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  —  Memory. 

Mr.  F.  B.  SANBORN. —  1.  Social  Science.  2.  Philanthropy 
and  Public  Charities. 

Rev.  Dr.  CYRUS  A.  BARTOL.  —  Education. 

Mr.  HARRISON  G.  0.  BLAKE.  —  Selections  from  Thoreau's 
Manuscripts. 


xii         CONCORD  SCHOOL   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


SECOND  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME.     1880. 

Mr.  A.  BRONSON  ALCOTT.  —  Five  Lectures  on   Mysticism : 

1.  St.  John  the  Evangelist.     2.  Plotinus.     3.  Tauler  and 
Eckhart.    4.  Behmen.    5.  Sweclenborg.     Mr.  Alcott  also 
delivered  the  Salutatory  and  Valedictory. 

Dr.  H.  K.  JONES.  —  Five  Lectures  011  The  Platonic  Philosophy, 
and  five  on  Platonism  in  its  Relation  to  Modern  Civiliza 
tion  :  1.  Platonic  Philosophy;  Cosmologic  and  Theologic 
Outlines.  2.  The  Platonic  Psychology  ;  The  Daemon  of 
Socrates.  3.  The  Two  Worlds,  and  the  Twofold  Con 
sciousness  ;  The  Sensible  and  the  Intelligible.  4.  The 
State  and  Church  ;  Their  Eolations  and  Correlations. 
5.  The  Eternity  of  the  Soul,  and  its  Pre-existence.  6. 
The  Immortality  and  the  Mortality  of  the  Soul ;  Personal 
ity  and  Individuality  ;  Metempsychosis.  7.  The  Psychic 
Body  and  the  Material  Body  of  Man.  8.  Education  and 
Discipline  of  Man  ;  The  Uses  of  the  World  we  live 
in.  9.  The  Philosophy  of  Law.  10.  The  Philosophy  of 
Prayer,  and  the  "  Prayer  Gauge." 

Dr.  WILLIAM  T.  HARRIS.  —  Five  Lectures  on  Speculative 
Philosophy,  namely  :  1.  Philosophic  Knowing.  2.  Philo 
sophic  First  Principles.  3.  Philosophy  and  Immortality. 

4.  Philosophy  and  Religion.  5.  Philosophy  and  Art.  —  Five 
Lectures  on  the  History  of  Philosophy,  namely  :  1.  Plato. 

2.  Aristotle.    3.  Kant.    4.  Fichte.    5.  Hegel. 

Rev.  JOHN  S.  KEDNEY,  D.D.  —  Four  Lectures  on  the  Philoso 
phy  of  the  Beautiful  and  Sublime. 

Mr.  DENTON  J.  SNIDER.  —  Five  Lectures  on  Shakspeare  : 
1.  Philosophy  of  Shakspearian  Criticism.  2.  The  Shak- 
spearian  World.  3.  Principles  of  Characterization  in 
Shakspeare.  4.  Organism  of  the  Individual  Drama. 

5.  Organism  of  the  Universal  Drama. 

Rev.  WILLIAM  H.  CHANNING.  — Four  Lectures  on  Oriental  and 
Mystical  Philosophy  :  1.  Historical  Mysticism.  2.  Man's 
Fourfold  Being.  3.  True  Buddhism.  4.  Modern  Pessimism. 


CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY.       xiii 

Mrs.  EDNAH  D.  CHENEY.  —  1.  Color.   2.  Early  American  Art. 

Mrs.  JULIA  WARD  HOWE.  —  Modern  Society. 

Mr.  JOHN  ALBEE.  —  1.  Figurative  Language.  2.  The  Lit 
erary  Art. 

Mr.  F.  B.  SANBORN.  —  The  Philosophy  of  Charity. 

Dr.  ELISHA  MULFORD.  —  1.  The  Personality  of  God.  2.  Prece 
dent  Relations  of  Eeligion  and  Philosophy  to  Christianity. 

Mr.  HARRISON  G.  0.  BLAKE.  —  Readings  from  Thoreau's 
Manuscripts. 

Eev.  Dr.  CYRUS  A.  BARTOL.  —  God  in  Nature. 

Rev.  Dr.  ANDREW  P.  PEABODY.  —  Conscience  and  Conscious 
ness. 

Mr.  EMERSON.  —  Aristocracy. 

Rev.  Dr.  FREDERIC  H.  HEDGE.  —  Ghosts  and  Ghost-seeing. 

Mr.  DAVID  A.  WASSON.  -  1.  Philosophy  of  History.  2.  The 
Same. 

(In  place  of  an  expected  lecture  of  Professor  PEIRCE, 
who  was  too  ill  to  be  present,  there  was  a  conversa 
tion  on  Hawthorne.) 

THIRD  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME.    1881. 

Mr.  A.  BRONSON  ALCOTT.  —  Salutatory,  Valedictory,  and  Five 
Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Life. 

Dr.  WILLIAM  T.  HARRIS.  —  First  Course:  Philosophical  Dis 
tinctions.  1.  Philosophy  Distinguished  from  Opinion  or 
Fragmentary  Observation;  The  Miraculous  vs.  The  Me 
chanical  Explanation  of  Things.  2.  Nominalism  of  Locke 
and  Hume;  Pantheistic  Realism  of  Hobbes,  Spinoza, 
Comte,  and  Spencer  vs.  the  Realism  of  Christianity.  3. 
The  Influence  of  Nature  upon  the  Human  Mind;  the 
Emancipation  of  the  Soul  from  the  Body.  4.  Sense- 
Impressions  and  Recollections  vs.  Memory  and  Reflec 
tion  ;  Animal  Cries  and  Gestures  vs.  Human  Language. 
5.  The  Metaphysical  Categories  used  by  Natural  Science, — 


xiv        CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Thing,  Fact,  Atom,  Force,  Law,  Final  Cause  or  Design, 
Correlation,  Natural  Selection,  Reality,  Potentiality,  and 
Actuality. 

Dr.  HARRIS.  —  Second  Course:  Hegel's  Philosophy.  1.  Hegel's 
Doctrine  of  Psychology  and  Logic;  his  Dialectic  Method 
and  System.  2.  Hegel's  Doctrine  of  God  and  the  World, 
—  Creator  and  Created.  3.  Relations  of  Kant  and  Hegel. 
4.  Hegel's  Distinction  of  Man  from  Nature;  Two  Kinds 
of  Immortality,  that  of  the  Species  and  that  of  the  Indi- 
•  vidual.  5.  Hegel's  Doctrine  of  Providence  in  History; 
Asia  rs.  Europe  as  furnishing  the  contrast  of  Pantheism 
and  Christianity.  6.  Hegel's  Theory  of  Fine  Arts  and 
Literature  as  reflecting  the  development  of  Man's  Spiritual 
Consciousness. 

Dr.  HIRAM  K.  JONES.  —  First  Course:  TJie  Platonic  PJiiloso- 
phy.  1.  The  Platonic  Cosmology,  Cosmogony,  Physics, 
and  Metaphysics.  2.  Myth  ;  The  Gods  of  the  Greek 
Mythology  ;  The  Ideas  and  Principles  of  their  Worship, 
Divine  Providence,  Free  Will,  and  Fate.  3.  Platonic 
Psychology.  The  Idea  of  Conscience  ;  The  Daemon  of 
Socrates.  4.  The  Eternity  of  the  Soul,  and  its  Pre- 
existence.  5.  The  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  and  the 
Mortality  of  the  Soul :  Personality  and  Individuality ; 
Metempsychosis. 

Dr.  JONES. — Second  Course:  Platonismin  its  Relation  to  Modern 
Civilization.  1.  The  Social  Genesis;  The  Church  and  the 
State.  2.  The  Education  and  Discipline  of  Man;  The 
Uses  of  the  World  we  live  in.  3.  The  Psychic  Body 
and  the  Material  Body  of  Man;  The  Christian  Resurrec 
tion.  4.  The  Philosophy  of  Law.  5.  The  Philosophy  of 
Prayer,  and  the  "  Prayer  Gauge." 

Mr.  DENTON  J.  SNIDER.  —  Five  Lectures  on  Greek  Life  and 
Literature. 

Mrs.  JULIA  WARD  HOWE.  —  1.  Philosophy  in  Europe  and 
America.  2.  The  Results  of  Kant. 

Mrs.  EDNAH  D.  CHENEY.  —  The  Relation  of  Poetry  to  Science. 


CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY.         xv 

Rev.  J.  S.  KEDNEY,  D.D.  —  Three  Lectures  on  the  Philo 
sophic  Groundwork  of  Ethics. 

Mrs.  AM  ALIA  J.  HATHAWAY.  —  Schopenhauer. 

President  JOHN  BASCOM.  —  Freedom  of  the  Will. 

Mr.  EDWIN  D.  MEAD.  —  Philosophy  of  Fichte. 

Mr.  S.  H.  EMERY,  Jr.  —  System  in  Philosophy. 

Rev.  F.  H.  HEDGE,  D.D.  —  A  Lecture  on  Kant. 

Professor  GEORGE  S.  MORRIS.  —  A  Lecture  on  Kant. 

Mr.  F.  B.  SANBORN.  —  1.  Roman  Literature.  2.  English  and 
German  Literature.  3.  American  Literature  and  Life. 

Mr.  JOHN  ALBEE.  —  Faded  Metaphors. 

Rev.  Dr.  C.  A.  BARTOL.  —  The  Transcendent  Faculty  in  Man. 

Dr.  ELISHA  MULFORD.  —  The  Philosophy  of  the  State. 

Dr.  ROWLAND  G.  HAZARD.  —  Philosophical  Character  of  Chan- 
ning. 

President'  XOAH  PORTER.  —  A  Lecture  on  Kant. 

Professor  JOHN  W.  MEARS.  —  A  Lecture  on  Kant. 

Professor  JOHN  WATSON.  —  The  Critical  Philosophy  in  its 
relation  to  Realism  and  Sensationalism. 

Mr.  H.  G.  0.  BLAKE.  —  Readings  from  Thoreau's  Manuscripts. 

FOURTH  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME.    1882. 

Mr.  A.  BRONSON  ALCOTT.  —  Four  Lectures  on  The  Personal, 
Generic  and  Individual  Mind.  1.  Personality,  Divine  and 
Human.  2.  The  Descending  Scale  of  Powers.  3.  Indi 
vidualism.  4.  Immortality,  Individual  or  Personal  ? 

Dr.  HARRIS.  —  Five  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Philosophy, 
three  on  Fichte's  Philosophy,  and  two  on  Art.  1.  Soc 
rates  and  the  Pre-Socratic  Philosophy.  2.  Aristotle's  De 
Anima  (his  distinctions  between  Nutrition,  Feeling,  and 
Thinking).  3.  Gnosticism  and  Neoplatonism.  4.  Christian 
Mysticism  :  Bonaventura  and  Meister  Eckhart.  5.  The 
Philosophy  of  the  Bhagavat  Gita.  6.  Fichte's  "  Destination 
of  Man."  7.  Fichte's  Wissenschaftslehre  —  Theoretical. 
8.  Fichte's  Wissenschaftslehre  —  Practical.  9.  Historical 
Epochs  of  Art.  10.  Landscape  Painting  —  Turner. 


xvi        CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Dr.  JONES. — Eight  Lectures  on  Christian  Philosophy.  First 
Course:  Chapters  in  the  History  of  Philosophy,  1.  Prem 
ises,  Predications,  and  Outlines  of  Christian  Philosophy. 
2.  The  Relation  between  Common-sense  and  Philoso 
phy.  3.  The  Relation  between  Science  and  Philosophy. 
4.  The  Relation  between  Experience  and  Philosophy. 

Dr.  JONES  .  —  Second  Course :  Truths  that  are  always  Old  and 
always  New  in  tliz  History  of  Human  Thought.  1.  The 
Genesis  of  the  "Maya."  2.  The  Philosophy  of  Religion 
and  the  Law  of  the  Supernatural.  3.  The  Community 
of  the  Faiths  and  the  Worships  of  Mankind.  4.  The 
Symposium. 

Dr.  KEDNEY.  —  Three  Lectures  on  Hegel's  ./Esthetics.  1.  Cri 
tique  of  Fundamentals.  2.  Critique  of  Symbolic  Art 
and  of  Classic  Art.  3.  Critique  of  Romantic  Art.  4.  The 
Philosophy  of  Professor  Ferrier,  with  a  Prelude  on 
Berkeley. 

Mr.  F.  B.  SANBORN.  —  Three  Lectures  on  Oracular  Poetry. 
1.  Hebrew,  Egyptian,  and  Greek  Oracles.  2.  Persian  and 
Christian  Oracles.  3.  The  Oracles  of  New  England. 

Rev.  Dr.  BARTOL.  —  The  Nature  of  Knowledge. 

Prof.  JOHN  WATSON,  of  Kingston.  —  Three  Lectures  on  Schell- 
ing.  1.  Schelling's  Relations  to  Kant  and  Fichte.  2. 
Early  Treatises,  Transcendental  Idealism,  and  Philoso 
phy  of  Identity.  3.  Later  Philosophy,  and  Transition  to 
Hegel. 

Miss  E.  P.  PEABODT.  —  Childhood. 

Mr.  JOHN  ALBEE.  —  Poetry. 

Mrs.  E.  D.  CHENEY.  —  Nature. 

Dr.  GEORGE  H.  Howisox.  —  Two  Lectures  on  German  Phi 
losophy  since  Hegel. 

President  PORTER.  —  Kantian  Ethics. 

Mrs.  J.  W.  HOWE.  —  Idols  and  Iconoclasts. 

Rev.  R.  A.  HOLLAND.  —  Atomism. 

Dr.  R.  G.  HAZARD.  —  1.  Man  as  Creative  Power.  2.  Utility 
of  Metaphysical  Pursuits. 


CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        xvii 

Mr.  G.  P.  LATHROP.  —  The  Symbolism  of  Color. 

Mr.  ALEXANDER  WILDER.  —  Alexandrian  Platonism. 

Rev.  Dr.  McCosn.  —  The  Scottish  Philosophy. 

Mr.  F.  B.  SAXBORX.  —  Readings  from  Thoreau's  Manuscripts. 

Iii  addition  to  the  regular  lectures  of  1882,  the 
recent  death  of  Mr.  Emerson  was  commemorated  by 
a  Poern  'and  address  by  Mr.  Sanborn,  and  the  fol 
lowing  exercises  on  the  commemoration  day :  — 

Address,  by  Rev.  Dr.  BARTOL  ;  Ion :  a  Monody,  by  Mr.  ALCOTT  ; 
Emerson  as  a  Poet,  by  JOEL  BENTOX  ;  Reminiscences  of 
Emerson,  by  Mrs.  HOWE  ;  Dialectic  Unity  in  Emerson's 
Prose,  by  Dr.  HARRIS  ;  A  Visit  to  Emerson,  by  Mr. 
ALBEE  ;  Poam,  —  "  Consolation,"  —  by  Mrs.  MARTHA  P. 
LOWE  ;  Emerson  as  a  Philosopher,  by  Dr.  ALEXANDER 
WILDER  ;  Reminiscences  of  Emerson,  by  Mrs.  E.  D. 
CHENEY. 

FIFTH  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME.     18S3. 

Dr.  WILLIAM  T.  HARRIS.  —  First  Course;  Elementary  Lessons 
in  Philosophy.  1.  Space  and  Time  Considered  ;  Basis  of 
Kantian  Philosophy.  Ground  of  certainty  deeper  than 
Scepticism  or  Agnosticism.  2.  Causality  and  Self-cause  ; 
Force  Transient  and  Persistent;  Self-existent  Energy  under 
lying  all  change.  3.  Fate  and  Freedom  ;  Individuality  ; 
Distinction  of  Reality  and  Potentiality  from  True  Actual 
ity,  of  Phenomenon  from  Substance.  4.  Laws  of  Thought, 
the  Principles  of  Identity,  Contradiction,  and  Excluded 
Middle  ;  Categories  of  Being,  Essence,  Cause,  and  Person 
ality. 

Dr.  HARRIS.—  Second  Course.  1.  The  Absolute  a  personal 
Reason.  Discussion  of  Plato's  insight  (Tenth  Book  of  the 
Laws)  and  Aristotle's  (the  eighth  book  of  his  Physics  and 
the  eleventh  of  his  Metaphysics).  2.  Triune  Nature  of 
God.  —  St.  Augustine,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  St.  Anselm,  — 
6 


xviii      CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Justice  and  Grace  in  the  Divine  Nature.  3.  The  World 
as  Revelation  of  the  Divine  First  Cause,  —  Nature  and 
Man  :  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  ;  the  Orders  of  Being  as 
Progressive  Revelation  of  the  Divine.  4.  Immortality  of 
the  individual  man  in  the  light  of  Psychology,  —  in  the 
light  of  the  Christian  Religion  ;  the  Vocation  of  Man  in 
the  Future  Life. 

Dr.  G.  H.  HOWISON. —  1.  Hume's  Aim  and  Method;  the 
Problem,  as  handed  over  to  Kant.  2.  Kant's  Mode  of 
Dealing  with  this  Problem.  3.  The  Strength  and  Weak 
ness  of  Kant's  Methods  and  Results.  4.  The  Same  Subject, 
concluded  ;  The  Outlook  from  Kant. 

Professor  WILLIAM  JAMES.  —  Three  Lectures  on  Psychology. 

Mr.  DENTON  J.  SNIDER.  —  Four  Lectures  on  Homer  and  the 
Greek  Religion.  1.  Literary  Bibles,  —  Homer.  2.  The 
Iliad.  3.  The  Odyssey.  4.  The  Gods. 

Dr.  KEDNEY.  —  Two  Lectures  on  Art  Appreciation  and  the 
Higher  Criticism. 

Mr.  F.  B.  SANBORN. — 1.  The  Puritanic  Philosophy,  —  Jona 
than  Edwards.  2.  The  Philanthropic  Philosophy,  —  Ben 
jamin  Franklin.  3.  The  Negation  of  Philosophy.  4.  The 
Ideal  and  Vital  Philosophy,  —  R.  W.  Emerson. 

Mr.  JOHN  ALBEE.  —  The  Norman  Influences  in  English 
Language  and  Literature. 

Rev.  Dr.  BARTOL.  —  Optimism  and  Pessimism,  —  a  Personal 
Equation. 

Miss  E.  P.  PEABODY.  —  Milton's  Paradise  Lost. 

Mrs.  E.  D.  CHENEY.  —  A  Study  of  Nirvana. 

Mr.  EDWIN  D.  MEAD.  —  Carlyle  and  Emerson. 

Mrs.  J.  W.  HOWE.  —  A  Conversation,  —  Margaret  Fuller. 

Mr.  JULIAN  HAWTHORNE.  — A  Lecture  on  Novels. 

Mr.  DAVID  A.  WASSON.  —  Herbert  Spencer's  Causal  Law 
of  Evolution. 

Mr.  LEWIS  J.  BLOCK.  —  Platonism  and  its  Relation  to 
Modern  Thought. 

Mr.  H.  G.  0.  BLAKE.  —  Readings  from  Thoreau's  Manuscripts. 


CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        xix 

SIXTH  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME.     18S4. 

Readings  from.  Mr.  Alcott's  Diary  and  Correspondence. 

Fourteen,  Lectures  on  the  Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson. 
1.  Emerson's  View  of  Nature;  by  Dr.  HARRIS,  of  Con 
cord.  2.  Emerson's  Religion ;  by  Dr.  BARTOL.  3.  Emer 
son's  Ethics  ;  by  Mr.  EDWIN  D.  MEAD.  4.  Emerson's 
Relation  to  Society;  by  Mrs.  JULIA  WARD  HOWE.  5.  Em 
erson  as  seen  from  India  ;  by  PROTAP  CHCNDER  MO- 
ZOOM  DAR,  of  Calcutta.  6.  Emerson  as  an  American  ;  by 
Mr.  JULIAN  HAWTHORNE,  of  Xew  York.  7.  Emerson  as 
Preacher  ;  by  Miss  E.  P.  PEABODY.  8.  A  French  View  of 
Emerson  ;  by  M.  RENE  DE  POYEN  BELLEISLE.  9.  Emer 
son  and  Boston  ;  by  Mrs.  E.  D.  CHENEY.  10.  Emerson 
as  an  Essayist;  by  Mr.  JOHN  ALBEE.  11.  Emerson  and 
Thoreau,  —  a  Conversation.  12.  Emerson's  View  of  Na 
tionality  ;  by  Rev.  G.  "W.  COOKE.  13.  Emerson  among 
the  Poets  ;  by  Mr.  F.  B.  SANBORN.  14.  Emerson's  Relation 
to  Goethe  and  Carlyle  ;  by  Dr.  HARRIS. 

Five  Lectures  on  Immortality;  by  Rev.  A.  P.  PEABODY,  D.D., 
of  Cambridge,  Mr.  JOHN  FISKE,  of  Cambridge,  Rev.  R.  A. 
HOLLAND,  D.D.,  of  New  Orleans,  Mr.  THOMAS  DAVIDSON, 
of  Cambridge,  and  Dr.  HARRIS,  of  Concord. 

SEVENTH  YEAR'S  PROGRAMME. 

At  the  adjournment  of  the  Concord  School,  Aug.  2, 
1884,  it  was  announced  that  the  next  session  would 
open  about  July  20, 1885,  and  would  continue  for  two 
weeks  or  more  ;  the  general  topic  to  be,  "  Goethe  and 
Modern  Science,"  considered  under  two  main  heads  : 
I.  Goethe's  Genius  and  Work.  II.  Is  Pantheism  the 
Legitimate  Outcome  of  Modern  Science  ? 

The  special  subjects  of  each  lecture  are  not  yet 
definitely  fixed,  nor  are  the  lecturers  assigned,  except 


xx         CONCORD  SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  part ;  but  the  following  may  be  taken  as  a  pro 
visional  arrangement,  —  liable  to  be  changed  before 
the  final  announcements  are  made  in  June,  1885  :  — 

I.  Goethe's  Genius  and  Work.    I.  Goethe  and  Modern  Science  ; 

by  T.  STERRY  HUNT,  of  Montreal.  2.  Goethe  and  Re- 
ligion  ;  by  Rev.  Dr.  R.  A.  HOLLAND.  3.  Goethe's  Rela 
tion  to  Kant  and  Spinoza  in  Philosophy  ;  by  Mr.  F.  L. 
SOLDAN,  of  St.  Louis.  4.  Goethe,  the  Trench  Revolution 
and  its  Results.  5,  Goethe  and  Art.  6.  Goethe  and  Mod 
ern  Education.  7.  Goethe's  Faust ;  by  Professor  HARRIS 
and  Mr.  D.  J.  SNIDER.  8.  Goethe's  Relation  to  English 
Literature;  by  F.  B.  SANBORN.  9.  Goethe's  Classical 
and  Oriental  Studies.  10.  The  Novelettes  in  "  Wilhelm. 
Meister  ; "  by  Professor  HARRIS.  11.  "Wilhelm  Meister" 
as  a  Whole  ;  by  Mr.  D.  J.  SNIDER.  12.  Goethe  and  Schil 
ler  ;  by  Rev.  Dr.  BARTOL.  13.  The  Women  of  Goethe ; 
by  Mrs.  JULIA  WARD  HOWE.  14.  The  Elective  Affinities  ; 
by  Mr.  S.  H.  EMERY,  Jr.,  of  Concord.  15.  Goethe's 
Titanism ;  by  Mr.  THOMAS  DAVIDSON.  16.  Goethe's  Self- 
Culture  ;  by  Mr.  JOHN  ALBEE. 

General  lectures  on  Goethe,  by  Dr.  H.  K.  JONES,  Prof.  G. 
H.  HOWISON,  Mrs.  CHENEY,  and  others,  are  expected. 

II.  A  Symposium :  Is  Pantheism   the  Legitimate  Outcome   of 
Modern  Science  ?   Papers  by  Rev.  Dr.  PEABODY,  Mr.  JOHN 
FISKE,  Professor  HARRIS,  and  others. 

The  management  of  the  Concord  School,  from  the 
beginning,  has  been  in  the  hands  of  a  Faculty,  the 
officers  of  which  have  been  Mr.  A.  BRONSON  ALCOTT, 
Dean,  Mr.  S.  H.  EMERY,  Jr.,  Director,  and  Mr.  F.  B. 
SANBORN,  Secretary.  These  three,  with  Dr.  WILLIAM 
T.  HARRIS,  Dr.  H.  K.  JONES,  Miss  PEABODY,  Mrs. 
CHENEY,  Mr.  SNIDER,  Dr.  KEDNEY,  Dr.  HOLLAND,  or 


S 

HJKJ 


CONCORD  SCHOOL   OF  PHILOSOPHY.       xxi 

so  many  of  these  and  the  other  lecturers  as  happen 
to  be  in  Concord,  constitute  the  Faculty  for  the  time 
being ;  but  the  permanent  and  active  members  are 
Messrs.  ALCOTT,  HARRIS,  EMERY,  and  SAXBORX.  In 
the  second  year  of  the  School  the  Hillside  Chapel 
was  built,  with  the  aid  of  a  small  fund  given  by 
Mrs.  ELIZABETH  THOMPSON,  of  Xew  York  ;  and  all 
the  sessions  are  now  held  there. 

The  variety  of  subjects  considered  during  the  six 
summers  that  the  School  has  existed  show  that  its 
scope  is  not  a  narrow  one ;  and  the  wide  diversity  of 
opinion  among  those  who  have  spoken  from  its  plat 
form  may  serve  as  a  guarantee  that  no  limitation  of 
sect  or  philosophical  shibboleth  has  been  enforced. 
The  aim  of  the  Faculty  has  been  to  bring  together 
a  few  of  those  persons  who,  in  America,  have  pur 
sued,  or  desire  to  pursue,  the  paths  of  speculative 
philosophy ;  to  encourage  these  students  and  profes 
sors  to  communicate  with  each  other  what  they  have 
learned  and  meditated ;  and  to  illustrate,  by  a  con 
stant  reference  to  poetry  and  the  higher  literature, 
those  ideas  which  philosophy  presents.  The  design 
was  modest,  and  in  no  ambitious  sense  a  public  one ; 
nor  have  the  Faculty  been  persuaded,  by  the  attention 
their  experiment  has  aroused,  to  diverge  from  the 
natural  and  simple  path  first  chosen.  The  first  pur 
pose  of  the  School  is  conversation  on  serious  topics, 
—  the  lectures  serving  mainly  as  a  text  for  discus- 


xxii       CONCORD  SCHOOL   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sion,  while  dispute  and  polemical  debate  are  avoided. 
In  this  we  have  sought  to  follow  the  example  of  him 
whom  this  volume  of  essays  and  poems  portrays,  and 
whose  method  in  philosophy  has  proved  so  attractive 
to  many  who  may  never  reach  the  same  intellectual 
results.  What  is  sought  in  the  discussions  at  Con 
cord  is  not  an  absolute  unity  of  opinion,  but  a  gen 
eral  agreement  in  the  manner  of  viewing  philosophic 
truth  and  applying  it  to  the  problems  of  life. 

F.  B.  S. 
CONCOKD,  Oct.  10,  1884. 


THE    GENIUS    AND    CHAEACTER 
OF    EMERSON. 


I. 

EMERSON  AND   BOSTON. 

BY  MRS.    EDXAH   D.    CHEXEY. 

ALTHOUGH  his  ancestors  were  of  the  old  stock  of 
Concord  ministers,  our  Emerson  was  born  in  Boston 
in  1803. l  Sball  we  rejoice  at  this  ?  Ordinarily  we 
are  glad  that  the  child  should  draw  his  first  breath 
in  the  fresh  air  of  the  country,  and  "  babble  of  green 
fields  "  in  his  infancy,  that  they  may  give  a  touch  of 
Nature  and  Religion  to  his  old  age,  even  were  it 
spent,  like  Shakspeare's  immortal  profligate's,  among 
the  foul  vices  and  base  pleasures  of  a  city.  But 
Nature's  own  darling  child,  henceforth  to  be  her 
tenderest  lover  and  wisest  interpreter,  was  born 

1  Some  of  the  old  friends  of  Mr.  Emerson  are  under  the  impres 
sion  that  he  was  born  in  Harvard,  Mass.,  where  his  father  lived 
some  time  ;  but  the  testimony  of  his  family  is  explicit  and  decided 
that  he  was  born  in  Summer  Street,  Boston.  One  of  his  earliest 
recollections  was  of  sitting  upon  the  wall  and  looking  longingly  at 
the  pears  in  a  neighbor's  garden. 

1 


2  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

within  the  limits  of  the  town;  for  blessed  Mother 
Nature  knew  that  her  child  would  never  forsake  her, 
but  that,  clinging  too  closely  to  her  breast,  he  might 
not  learn  the  sterner  lessons  of  wisdom  which  only 
/the  life  of  humanity  in  association  can  teach,  fit  was 
given  to  him,  therefore,  to  blend  the  virtues  ooth  of 
the  city  and  of  the  country  in  the  practical  wisdom, 
the  ripe  good  sense,  the  broad  humanity,  the  poetic 
beauty,  and  the  unfailing  serenity  of  his  lifeJ  Coming 
from  under  his  pines  at  Concord,  he  was  no  stranger  in 
the  streets  of  our  eager  and  bustling  city ;  it  was  the 
same  old  native  town  which  he  ever  loved  and  be 
lieved  in,  and  whose  influence  is  clearly  traceable  in 
his  life  and  writings.  (  I  count  it  a  great  felicity  for 
him,  and  for  us,  that  he  thus  partook  of  the  life  of 
the  city  from  his  very  youth,  and  so  became  not 
merely  the  poet  of  outward  Nature,  but  the  seer  of 
Humanity.-'  How  have  the  greatest  men  loved  their 
city  homes !  Jesus  was  wont  to  retire  to  the  Mount 
of  Olives  for  lonely  meditation  and  prayer ;  but  he 
wept  over  Jerusalem  as  a  mother  weeps  for  her  lost 
child.  Dante  might  choose  his  home  in  all  the  wide, 
beautiful  world ;  but  to  be  out  of  the  streets  of  Flor 
ence  was  exile  to  him.  Socrates  never  cared  to  go 
beyond  the  bounds  of  Athens.  The  great  universal 
heart  welcomes  the  city  as  a  natural  growth  of  the 
eternal  forces,  and 

"  Nature  gladly  gives  it  place, 
Adopting  it  into  her  race, 
And  granting  it  an  equal  date 
With  Andes  and  with  Ararat." 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  3 

Emerson  has  many  a  severe  word  for  the  city,  as 
every  sensitive  soul  shrinks  at  times  from  the  rude 
contact  of  average,  struggling  humanity,  and  longs  to 
say,  in  weary  mood, 

"  Good-by,  proud  world  !  I  'm  going  home." 

Indeed,  at  such  times 

"  The  politics  are  base, 

The  letters  do  not  cheer, 
And  't  is  far  in  the  deeps  of  history 

The  voice  that  speaketh  clear. 
Trade  and  the  streets  ensnare  us, 

Our  bodies  are  weak  and  worn  ; 
"We  plot  and  corrupt  each  other, 

And  we  despoil  the  unborn." 

Writing  to  Carlyle  concerning  Xew  York,  he  says  : 
"  I  always  seem  to  suffer  some  loss  of  faith  on  enter 
ing  cities ; "  and  yet  he  acknowledges  that  the  poor 
fellows  who  live  there  "  do  get  some  compensation 
for  the  sale  of  their  souls."  ^But  Emerson  also  recog 
nizes  that  the  town  is  under  the  care  of  Nature,  who 
does  not  desert  humanity  even  in  the  crisis  of  its 
struggle.  }  How  often  does  the  weary  toiler  take 
comfort'Trom  his  lines,  — 

"  The  inevitable  morning 

Finds  them  who  in  cellars  be  ; 
And  be  sure  the  all-loving  Xature 
"Will  smile  in  a  factory. 

"  Still,  still  the  secret  presses, 

The  nearing  clouds  draw  down  ; 
The  crimson  morning  flames  into 
The  fopperies  of  the  town. 


4  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  And  what  if  Trade  sow  cities 

Like  shells  along  the  shore, 
And  thatch  with  towns  the  prairie  hroad, 

"With  railways  ironed  o'er  ? 
They  are  but  sailing  foam-bells 

Along  Thought's  causing  stream, 
And  take  their  shape  and  sun-color 

From  him  that  sends  the  dream." 

He  says :  — 

"  We  can  ill  spare  the  commanding  social  benefits  of 
cities ;  they  must  be  used,  yet  cautiously  and  haughtily, 
and  will  yield  their  best  values  to  him  who  best  can  do 
without  them." 

"  Keep  the  town  for  occasions ;  but  the  habits  should 
be  formed  to  retirement." 

"Cities  give  us  collision.  Tis  said  London  and  New 
York  take  the  nonsense  out  of  a  man." 

Boston  town  as  Emerson  knew  it  in  his  child 
hood  was  in  its  happy  youth,  when  Nature  still  lay 
all  about  it ;  and  was  like  a  family  association,  where 
every  man  knew  his  neighbor,  and  there  was  a  com 
mon  bond  of  good-fellowship  among  all.  The  Com 
mon  was  still  the  training-ground  and  cow-pasture, 
and  the  boy's  little  feet  roamed  freely  over  it,  with  no 
caution  to  "  keep  off  the  grass."  Yet  it  was  already 
a  place  consecrated  by  historic  memories.  The  British 
had  built  fortifications  upon  it  during  the  war ;  and 
when  the  Constitution  was  adopted  a  procession  had 
carried  an  old  long-boat,  named  the  "  Old  Confederacy," 
to  the  Common,  and  there  burned  it  amid  the  shouts 
of  the  rejoicing  people.  The  Common  was  endeared 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  5 

to  every  one  as  the  theatre  of  his  sports  and  exercises 
in  youth,  or  of  the  quiet  walks  for  thought  and  con 
templation  or  the  sweet  converse  of  lovers,  in  later 
years. 

Emerson's  childhood  in  Boston  was  during  a  period 
of  commercial  activity  and  pecuniary  prosperity,  when 
the  career  wras  open  to  talent,  and  every  boy  might 
look  forward  to  success  and  fame  in  life.  Yet  econ 
omy  was  necessary  in  the  household  of  the  widowed 
mother;  and  thus  the  true-hearted  boy  learned  the 
lessons  of  conscientious  frugality  for  the  sake  of  noble 
good,  which  are  so  conspicuous  in  his  thought.  But 
these  were  blended  with  a  generous  wisdom,  which 
counselled  to  spend  for  one's  genius,  but  not  for  show 
in  the  eyes  of  others.  His  chapter  on  "  Wealth  "  is 
full  of  the  wisdom  of  the  saint  and  the  practical 
sagacity  of  Poor  Richard  :  — 

"  As  long  as  your  genius  buys,  the  investment  is  safe, 
though  you  spend  like  a  monarch." 

"  Spend  for  your  expense,  and  retrench  the  expense 
which  is  not  yours." 

"  But  vanity  costs  money,  labor,  horses,  men,  women, 
health,  and  peace,  and  is  still  nothing  at  last,  —  a  long 
way  leading  nowhere." 

"  A  good  pride  is,  as  I  reckon  it,  worth  from  five 
hundred  to  fifteen  hundred  a  year." 

Very  early  he  found  the  help  of  the  city  in  getting 
the  novel  he  craved  from  the  circulating  library ;  but 
when  his  aunt  reproached  him  for  spending  six  cents 


6  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

on  such  a  luxury  while  his  mother's  needs  were  so 
constant,  he  left  the  story  unfinished,  and  did  not 
take  out  the  second  volume.  The  wise  mother  did 
not  keep  her  boy  tied  to  her  apron-strings,  but  at 
eight  years  old  sent  him  to  the  grammar  school,  that 
his  life  might  be  rooted  in  the  common  ground  with 
his  fellow-citizens.  This  grammar  school  was  prob 
ably  one  whose  course  of  instruction  was  laid  down 
in  1784  by  a  committee  of  which  Samuel  Adams 
was  a  member.  Dilworth's  spelling-book,  containing 
a  brief  treatise  on  English  grammar,  was  the  only 
text-book  required.  Arithmetic  included  vulgar  and 
decimal  fractions ;  while  the  Bible  and  Psalter  were 
the  only  reading-books.  We  do  not  know  how  much 
this  programme  had  been  extended  in  1811.  In 
1814  he  became  a  Latin  School  boy.  The  Latin 
School  is  a  peculiarly  "  Boston  institution,"  and  was 
founded  in  the  very  earliest  period  of  her  history. 
Boston  has  always  believed  in  beginning  to  grow  at 
the  top ;  and  long  before  she  had  primary  schools 
for  her  children  she  had  her  college  and  Latin 
School,  to  keep  learning  alive  and  furnish  leaders  in 
the  great  warfare  against  the  enemy  of  souls.  The 
aristocracy  that  founded  the  Latin  School  is  not  that 
of  selfishness  and  greed,  —  "  the  best  for  me,  and  the 
worst  for  the  rest  of  the  world,"  —  but  it  holds 
the  doctrine  of  noblesse  oblige,  and  teaches  that  the 
highest  service  must  have  the  fullest  preparation. 
The  poorest  boy  may  share  its  privileges ;  but  he  is 
expected  to  pay  for  them  by  superior  work  done  in 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  7 

the  course  of  his  life,  —  not  by  sinking  into  the 
readiest  means  for  gaining  wealth  or  ignoble  ease. 
The  honorable  names  among  our  Latin  School  boys 
have  justified  this  claim. 

If  Emerson  often  read  the  book  of  genius  by 
stealth,  instead  of  conning  the  stupid  lessons  of  rou 
tine,  he  still  accomplished  the  work  of  preparation 
for  college  ;  and  he  got  from  his  public-school  train 
ing  the  best  results  of  an  acquaintance  with  the 
future  men  of  his  age  and  country.  These  early 
companionships,  like  family  ties,  have  a  special  value 
in  binding  us  to  acquaintance  with  those  unlike  us 
in  tastes  and  habits,  whom  we  might  not  seek  from 
choice.  They  save  us  from  living  in  a  petty  world  of 
our  own  choosing,  as  well  as  from  the  dreary  experi 
ence  of  the  aristocratic  lady  who  said  that  "  the  longer 
she  lived  the  more  she  realized  how  little  there  is  out 
side  of  one's  own  circle."  Emerson's  high  courtesy 
could  always  meet  all  on  equal  terms,  and  the  poor 
est  of  servants  or  the  highest  of  nobles  alike  felt  of 
kin  to  him  when  he  gave  them  the  benediction  of 
the  morning. 

The  commercial  prosperity  which  existed  during 
his  childhood  was  followed  by  the  hated  embargo 
and  the  war  with  England,  which  had  such  a  disas 
trous  influence  on  the  business  of  Boston,  changing  it 
from  a  purely  commercial  to  a  manufacturing  town. 
During  the  war  the  British  cruisers  could  be  daily 
seen  in  the  harbor,  and  volunteer  companies  were  en 
gaged  in  defending  commerce  and  in  building  forts. 


8  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Politics  furnished  the  theme  of  all  intellectual  con 
versation,  and  Emerson  must  have  found  his  young 
mind  broadened  and  enriched  by  the  exciting  discus 
sions  of  the  time.  The  master  of  the  school  once 
invited  his  boys  to  spend  the  next  day  in  helping 
to  throw  up  defences  against  the  enemy  at  Noddle's 
Island,  now  East  Boston. 

Party  spirit  raged  fiercely  throughout  the  nation, 
and  especially  in  Boston.  The  French  Revolution 
had  aroused  the  greatest  activity  of  thought  on  politi 
cal  and  social  questions,  and  the  party  divisions  of 
that  day  did  not  represent  a  mere  scramble  for  office, 
but  the  opposite  sides  of  the  most  important  problems 
of  social  and  political  economy.  While  the  Demo 
crats  held  those  generous  views  which  captivate  the 
young  mind,  on  the  other  side  was  an  array  of  per 
sonal  character  and  historic  reputation  which  could 
not  but  command  the  respect  of  a  modest  and  rever 
ent  nature  ;  so  that,  as  Emerson  afterwards  said, "  One 
party  had  the  best  ideas  and  the  other  the  best  men." 
An  orphan  boy,  much  under  the  influence  of  wise 
and  sweet  women,  Emerson  was  not  bound  to  follow 
a  father's  party  in  politics,  and  may  early  have 
learned  the  great  lesson  of  unpartisan  patriotism 
which  he  so  fully  carried  out.  As  a  young  man  of 
eighteen  or  nineteen  he  may  have  heard  the  ani 
mated  discussions  in  regard  to  the  adoption  of  the 
city  charter,  and  may  have  remembered  Josiah 
Quincy's  eloquent  eulogiums  on  the  town  meetings 
when  he  wrote  afterwards  to  Carlyle,  — 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  9 

"  I  will  show  you  (as  in  this  country  we  can  anywhere) 

an  America  in  miniature  in  the  April  or  November  town 
meeting.  Therein  should  you  conveniently  study  and 
master  the  whole  of  our  hemispherical  politics,  reduced  to 
a  nutshell,  and  have  a  new  version  of  Oxenstiern's  little 
wit,  and  yet  be  consoled  by  seeing  that  here  the  farmers, 
patient  as  their  bulls  of  head-boards  (provided  for  them 
in  relation  to  distant  national  objects  by  kind  editors  of 
newspapers),  do  yet  their  will,  and  a  good  will,  in  their 
own  parish."  1 

Nothing  of  the  spirit  of  the  cockney  ever  came  of 
his  city  birth  and  training.  The  city  was  a  centring 
of  forces  which  could  accomplish  great  results,  but 
the  simple  working  life  of  the  country  supplied  the 
life-blood  which  gave  it  strength  and  power  of  ac 
tion.  He  recognized  the  function  of  great  centres  of 
population,  but  also  their  dangers.  France  has  held 
herself  compact  and  firm  in  her  intellectual  life,  amid 
countless  revolutions,  greatly  through  the  centralizing 
influence  of  her  metropolis,  to  which  the  eye  of  every 
boy  of  talent  and  ambition  turns  as  to  his  polar  star. 
Emerson  said  of  England :  "  The  nation  sits  in  the 
immense  city  they  have  bu ikied,  a  London  extended 
into  every  man's  mind,  though  he  live  in  Van 
Diemen's  Land  or  Cape  Town ; "  and  he  recognized 
Carlyle  as  a  "  product  of  London."  Germany  must 
yet  find  or  make  a  central  city  (perhaps  the  Berlin 

1  This  passage  was  equally  descriptive  of  Concord,  however, 
where  it  was  written,  and  where  Emerson  made  his  home  con 
stantly  from  1834  to  his  death  in  April,  1882. 


10  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

of  Frederick  the  Great)  before  she  can  become  a  truly 
united  nation.  How  wisely  have  Florence,  Turin, 
Milan,  and  Naples  yielded  local  prejudices  and  made 
Rome,  with  its  far-reaching  historic  memories,  the 
centre  of  the  new  Italian  government  and  life ! 

More  than  any  city  on  this  continent  Boston  has 
been  a  real  uniting  centre  for  a  large  and  intelligent 
population.  All  over  New  England,  men  have  said 
as  Emerson  wrote  to  Carlyle,  "  I  am  spending  the 
summer  in  the  country,  but  my  address  is  Boston ; " 
and  as  the  iron  links  have  been  more  closely  woven 
around  the  hills  and  through  the  valleys,  the  inter 
change  has  become  so  constant  (as  the  citizen  seeks 
health  and  refreshment  in  every  quiet  village  by  the 
mountain  or  seaside,  and  the  dweller  in  the  country 
comes  to  the  city  for  lessons  and  lectures,  opera 
and  concert)  that  dress  and  manners  are  hardly 
distinguishable,  and  each  part  can  "  call  the  farthest 
brother." 

'  How  truly  Emerson  felt  that  the  city  did  not  shut 
me'n  out  from  the  sublimity  of  the  universe  is  shown 
in  that  glorious  passage  on  the  stars  with  which  he 
opens  the  great  prose  poem  of  "  Nature,"  —  "  Seen  in 
the  streets  of  cities,  how  great  they  are  ! "  We  please 
ourselves  with  thinking  that  he  had  never  lost  the 
feeling  with  which  he  first  looked  up  through  the 
vista  of  the  narrow  streets  of  Boston,  and  caught 
the  shining  of  the  Eternal  in  the  stars ;  and  that  ever 
after  they  had  a  glory  for  him  there  which  he  did  not 
find  on  the  mountain-top,  or  the  broad  ocean,  or  as 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  11 

they  bent  nearer  and  more  lovingly  to  him  on  the 
plains  of  Concord. 

When  he  entered  Harvard  College  in  1817,  the  life 
at  Cambridge,  in  College  and  Divinity  School,  did  not 
break  his  relation  to  Boston ;  for  the  two  were  then 
closely  united,  and  Commencement  Day  was  a  gen 
eral  holiday.  The  mild  Kirkland  was  President; 
Channing,  Everett,  and  Ticknor  were  among  his  pro 
fessors  ;  Josiah  Quincy,  son  and  grandson  of  Josiah, 
the  most  Bostonian  of  Bostonians,  who  might  live  at 
Quincy  but  prayed  to  be  buried  in  Boston,  was  a 
classmate.  More  important  than  college  and  divinity 
lectures,  however,  was  the  influence  of  Everett's  and 
Channing's  eloquence.  The  indifference  shown  by 
Everett  to  the  great  moral  conflict  of  the  age  de 
stroyed  so  much  of  his  personal  influence  in  his  later 
years,  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  that  his 
eloquence  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  Emerson  and 
Elizabeth  Peabody  and  Margaret  Fuller ;  but  he  had 
not  then  lost  the  faith  and  love  of  youth,  and  he  may 
have  helped  the  young  man  to  that  temperance  of 
thought  and  sobriety  of  manner  which  never  failed 
him,  but  blended  happily  with  his  never-ceasing 
earnestness  and  enthusiasm.  Dr.  Chanuing  was  then 
preaching  in  his  Federal  Street  Church,  and  Edward 
Everett,  leaving  his  pulpit  in  Boston,  had  become  a 
professor  at  Cambridge,  from  which  position  he  en 
tered  Congress  in  1825,  and  in  due  time  became 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  Emerson  says  of  him 
in  1820:  — 


12  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  There  was  an  influence  on  the  young  people  from  the 
genius  of  Everett  which  was  almost  comparable  to  that  of 
Pericles  in  Athens.  He  had  an  inspiration  which  did  not 
go  beyond  his  head,  but  which  made  him  the  master  of 
elegance.  If  any  of  my  readers  were  at  that  period  in 
Boston  or  Cambridge,  they  will  easily  remember  his  radi 
ant  beauty  of  person,  of  a  classic  style ;  his  heavy  large 
eye,  marble  lids  which  gave  the  impression  of  mass  that 
the  slightness  of  his  form  needed  ;  sculptured  lips  ;  a  voice 
of  such  rich  tones,  such  precise  and  perfect  utterance,  that, 
although  slightly  nasal,  it  was  the  most  mellow  and  beau 
tiful  and  correct  of  all  the  instruments  of  the  time.  The 
word  that  he  spoke,  in  the  manner  in  which  he  spoke  it, 
became  current  and  classical  in  New  England.  .  .  .  He 
had  nothing  in  common  with  vulgarity  or  infirmity ;  but, 
speaking,  walking,  sitting,  was  as  much  aloof  and  uncom 
mon  as  a  star.  The  smallest  anecdote  of  his  conversation 
or  behavior  was  eagerly  caught  and  repeated ;  and  every 
young  scholar  could  recite  brilliant  sentences  from  his 
sermons,  with  mimicry,  good  or  bad,  of  his  voice.  Every 
youth  was  his  defender,  and  boys  filled  their  mouths  with 
arguments  to  prove  that  the  orator  had  a  heart." 

Although  Emerson  preached  for  a  short  time  at 
New  Bedford  and  other  places,  he  accepted  a  call  to 
settle  in  Boston  as  his  rightful  place,  and  was  in 
stalled  as  colleague  with  Henry  Ware  in  1829  over 
the  Second  Church,  in  Hanover  Street.  Welcomed 
by  the  pastor  and  congregation,  and  "  charming  them 
by  the  beauty  of  his  elocution  and  the/  direct 
and  sincere  manner) in  which  he  addressed  them," 
all  seemed  to  promise  a  long  and  happy  relation. 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  13 

Although  in  style  his  discourses  were  not  unlike 
those  of  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries,  — 
Channing,  Buckminster,  etc.,  —  yet  the  great  spirit 
within  them  was  felt  by  those  in  harmony  with  him ; 
while  it  was  clear  that  "  God  had  let  loose  a  thinker 
upon  the  planet,"  l  and  that  men  must  beware  for 
their  frail  shells  of  conventionalism,  which  he  would 
inevitably  break  down.  When  the  expanding  life 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  give  up  some  of  the 
customary  observances,  especially  the  form  of  public 
prayer  and  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  a 
general  discussion  was  aroused  throughout  the  city. 
I  remember  as  a  school-girl  listening  to  the  com 
ments  of  my  dressmaker  on  "  this  minister  who  did 
not  go  into  the  pulpit  in  the  spirit  of  prayer." 

The  impersonality  of  his  action  in  thus  leaving  the 
established  church  of  his  ancestors  is  shown  by  the 
tender  affection  which  he  ever  cherished  for  it.  As 
he  truly  wrote,  — 

"  "We  love  the  venerable  house 

Our  fathers  built  to  God. 
In  heaven  are  kept  their  grateful  vows, 
Their  dust  endears  the  sod." 

1  Nothing  could  more  fitly  describe  the  coming  of  Emerson  to 
the  world  of  Boston  and  the  influence  of  his  transcendental  thought 
than  his  own  words  :  "  Beware  when  the  great  God  lets  loose  a 
thinker  on  this  planet ;  then  all  things  are  at  risk.  It  is  as  when 
a  conflagration  has  broken  out  in  a  great  city,  and  no  man  knows 
what  is  safe  or  where  it  will  end.  There  is  not  a  piece  of  science 
that  its  flank  may  not  be  turned  to-morrow;  there  is  not  a  literary 
reputation  but  the  so-called  eternal  names  of  fame  that  may  not  be 
revised  and  condemned." 


14  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

He  recognized 

"  How  anxious  hearts  have  pondered  here 

The  mystery  of  life, 
And  prayed  the  Eternal  Spirit  clear 
Their  doubts,  and  end  their  strife." 

To  many,  who 

"  In  this  church  a  blessing  found 
Which  filled  their  homes  again," 

the  loss  of  his  weekly  ministrations  seemed  irrepara 
ble.  Many  years  after,  I  read  manuscript  notes  taken 
of  his  sermons  by  a  woman  whose  life  was  fashioned 
to  peace  and  purity ;  and  her  daughter  used  to  cher 
ish  in  memory  one  of  his  parochial  visits,  when  he 
took  her  on  his  lap  and  showed  her  the  barberry 
blossom,  and  how  its  stamens  sprang  up  at  the  touch 
of  a  pin  or  an  insect.1 

The  places  in  Boston  associated  with  Emerson  as 
a  minister  are  chiefly  at  the  I^orth  End.  His  church 
was  in  Hanover  Street,  not  far  from  Father  Taylor's 
Bethel,  and  his  parsonage  was  in  Chardon  Street, 
near  Bowdoin  Square.  In  later  times  he  for  years 
frequented  the  old  American  House  in  Hanover 
Street,  and  would  shut  himself  up  there  to  finish  a 
lecture  which  the  music  of  his  pines  had  not  given 
him  leisure  for ;  and  I  have  pleased  myself  in  think 
ing  that  the  ancient  memory  of  the  church  in  which 

1  The  public  record  of  his  work  as  a  preacher  is  very  meagre. 
It  is  highly  desirable  that  those  who  recollect  him  at  that  period 
should  give  their  reminiscences  to  the  public,  as  Miss  Peabody  has 
done  to-day. 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  15 

he  ministered  sanctified  to  him  this  street,  which  to 
others  might  seem  the  very  abode  of  mammon-worship 
and  vulgarity. 

After  a  year's  absence  spent  in  travelling  for  the 
benefit  of  his  health,  in  1833-1834,  Emerson  returned 
to  Boston,  but  not  to  the  work  of  the  Unitarian 
ministry.  He  preached  only  once  in  his  old  church, 
—  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  a  friend,  —  and  he 
soon  went  to  Concord,  and  made  his  home  there  ever 
afterward.  But  in  thus  leaving  Boston  he  was  not 
severed  from  it.  He  still  found  there  his  intellectual 
companionship  and  his  spiritual  parish.  He  was  no 
longer  the  boy  in  her  schools,  or  the  preacher  in  her 
churches ;  but  on  the  lecture  platform  he  found  op 
portunity  for  the  freest  and  fullest  expression  of  his 
life  and  thought.  Xor  can  we  say  that  "  he  came 
unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received  him  not."  From 
the  time  that  lie  began  his  first  course  of  lectures 
in  Boston,  in  1835,  a  circle  of  friends,  admirers,  and 
disciples  gathered  about  him,  who  never  faltered  in 
their  allegiance,  and  who  found  in  his  words  their 
highest  moral  and  spiritual  inspiration  and  their 
richest  intellectual  enjoyment.  He  never  drew  a 
noisy  crowd ;  he  rarely  spoke  in  the  largest  halls  of 
the  city ;  but  a  moderate-sized  room  was  tilled  with 
an  audience  of  the  most  intelligent,  cultivated,  and 
earnest  men  and  women.  The  same  faces  might  be 
seen  there,  week  after  week  and  year  after  year ;  and 
when  almost  for  the  last  time  he  repeated  a  lecture  at 
the  Old  South  Church  in  1880  for  the  benefit  of  its 


16  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

funds,  it  was  touching  to  see  the  gray  heads  bent 
eagerly  forward  to  catch  his  words,  —  the  hearing  of 
the  listener  having  grown  dull,  and  the  silvery  voice 
of  the  speaker  low,  while  the  chord  of  sympathy  and 
love  was  still  unbroken  between  them.  A  generation 
grew  up  under  the  benediction  of  those  great  words 
in  which  ever  the  noblest  principles  and  highest 
faith  were  appealed  to ;  and  among  them  were  found 
the  lofty  men  and  "  honorable  women  not  a  few," 
who  have  upheld  the  standard  of  education,  morals, 
and  pure  philanthropy  in  Boston,  and  who  have 
been  the  earnest  workers  in  every  good  cause. 

The  portrait  by  David  Scott1  recalls  his  expression 
and  action  in  the  lecture-room  during  that  early 
period.  The  rapt  expression  of  intense  thought  was 
emphasized  by  the  peculiar  action  of  the  hand,  which 
Scott  has  given.  His  voice  was  modulated  by  every 
shade  of  feeling,  but  had  always  a  peculiar  resonance 
which  gave  spirit  and  life  to  its  tones ;  and  it  an 
swered  to  that  glance  of  the  eyes  which  recalled  Mrs. 
Child's  comparison  of  light  shining  out  from  a  temple. 
But  the  charm  of  manner  was  intimately  connected 
with  the  thought,  and  was  not  that  superficial  readi 
ness  which  pleases  everybody.  Newspaper  writers 
and  School-ship  boys  thought  it  awkward  and  em 
barrassed.2  He  never  wearied  his  audience ;  he  was 

1  Heliotyped  for  this  volume. 

2  Perhaps  every  anecdote  is  worth  preserving.    Mr.  Emerson  once 
addressed  the  boys  on  board  the  Reform  School-ship.     He  disliked 
extemporaneous  speaking,  and  he  was  embarrassed  and  confused  by 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  1  7 

a  perfect  artist  in  the  correspondence  between  the 
value  of  the  thought  and  the  beauty  of  the  expres 
sion,  and  his  sentences  were  like  jewels  whose  bril 
liancy  drew  your  attention  before  you  knew  their 
worth.  He  was  very  scrupulous  in  regard  to  time, 
never  keeping  his  audience  more  than  an  hour,  but 
often  tantalizing  them  by  suddenly  closing  his  lec 
ture  when  seemingly  much  of  his  manuscript  re 
mained  unread. 

One  of  the  richest  treasures  which  Emerson  found 
in  Boston  was  the  old  sailor-preacher,  Father  Taylor. 
This  son  of  the  forecastle  possessed  a(jpoetic  insight 
and  imagination  only  equalled  by  his  warm  heart  and 
fervent  devotionJ  Utterly  undaunted  by  pretensions 
of  any  kind,  he  saw  clearly  through  all  shams,  and 
recognized  the  true  ring  of  the  Divine  wherever  he 
heard  the  note.  Mr.  Emerson  delighted  in  his  wit 
and  his  wisdom,  often  went  to  hear  him  preach,  and 
subscribed  to  his  Bethel.  His  Ion  mot  in  regard  to 
Emerson  has  often  been  repeated,  but  I  will  give  it 
as  I  had  it  from  the  lips  of  Governor  Andrew,  to 
whom  Father  Taylor  had  said  it :  — 

"  Mr.  Emerson,"  said  Father  Taylor,  "  is  one  of  the 
sweetest  creatures  God  ever  made.  But  there  is  a  screw 

the  novel  audience.  A  few  days  after,  the  teacher  of  reading,  wish 
ing  to  impress  upon  the  boys  of  the  ship  the  importance  of  ease  and 
freedom  of  utterance,  mimicked  the  awkwardness  and  confusion  of 
an  inexperienced  speaker,  and  asked,  "  Now,  boys,  what  should 
you  think  if  you  heard  a  man  speak  so  ?"  "  Should  think  it  was 
Mr.  Emerson,"  shouted  the  irrepressibles  of  the  forecastle. 


18  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

loose  somewhere  in  the  machinery ;  yet  I  cannot  tell 
where  it  is,  for  I  never  heard  it  jar.  He  must  go  to 
heaven  when  he  dies,  for  if  he  went  to  hell  the  Devil 
would  not  know  what  to  do  with  him.  But  still  he 
knows  no  more  of  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament 
than  Balaam's  ass  did  of  the  principles  of  the  Hebrew 
grammar." 

As  the  poor  beast  spoke  the  word  of  the  Lord,  in 
spite  of  his  ignorance  of  grammar,  so  Father  Taylor 
seemed  to  intimate  that  Emerson  had  entered  into 
the  life  of  heavenly  grace,  though  he  did  not  go 
through  the  portals  of  Christianity.  The  last  time  I 
saw  Father  Taylor,  —  possibly  the  last  time  he  and 
Emerson  met, — was  at  a  meeting  of  the  friends  of  the 
Fifty- fourth  (colored)  Eegiment  of  Massachusetts  Vol 
unteers,  at  Chickering's  Rooms,  on  Friday,  March  20, 
1863,  to  raise  means  for  supplying  them  with  an 
outfit  like  that  of  other  regiments  sent  from  this 
State  in  the  war.  Father  Taylor  was  very  old  and 
infirm,  and  spoke  little,  but  his  presence  on  the  plat 
form  was  significant.  Mr.  Emerson  came  in  from  the 
anteroom  with  his  face  on  fire  with  indignation,  as  I 
never  saw  it  on  any  other  occasion,  and  announced 
to  the  audience  that  he  had  just  learned  that  South 
Carolina  had  given  out  the  threat  that  colored  sol 
diers,  if  captured,  should  not  be  treated  as  prisoners, 
but  be  put  to  death.  "  What  answer  does  Massachu 
setts  send  back  to  South  Carolina  ? "  he  said.  "  Two 
for  one!"  shouted  voices  in  the  audience.  "Is  that 
the  answer  that  Massachusetts  sends?"  he  asked; 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  19 

and  the  audience  responded  with  applause.  He  retired 
from  the  platform,  it  seemed  to  me  a  little  appalled 
at  the  spirit  he  had  raised. 

While  there  was  never  a  time  when  Emerson  was 
not  recognized  by  the  circle  of  wise  and  beautiful 
souls  who  formed  his  parish  in  Boston,  his  Divinity 
School  Address  and  other  utterances  in  regard  to 
theological  topics  undoubtedly  gave  sincere  pain  to 
many  who  had  been  numbered  among  his  thoughtful 
friends,  and  still  greater  offence  to  the  superficial 
crowd  that  were  unable  to  appreciate  his  thoughts. 
It  was  the  fashion  among  a  certain  clique  to  sneer  at 
his  lectures  as  vague,  whimsical,  and  incomprehen 
sible.  "  Nothing  but  whipped  syllabub,"  said  a  lit 
erary  man  now  well-nigh  forgotten,  — "  but  I  like 
syllabub."  I  once  heard  the  late  George  S.  Hillard 
say,  "/  don't  understand  Mr.  Emerson,"  in  a  tone 
which  plainly  implied  that  he  considered  the  loss  to 
be  on  Emerson's  side.  To  the  same  effect  the  tre 
mendous  dictum  of  the  great  lawyer,  Jeremiah  Mason, 
whose  imposing  stature  overawed  lesser  men,  has 
been  often  repeated  :  "  /  don't  understand  Emerson  ; 
my  gals  do."  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Mason  really  en 
joyed  every  lecture,  although  he  could  not  quite 
accept  the  new  light.  After  hearing  the  lecture  on 
"  Memory,"  a  smart  young  lawyer  approached  a  lady 
the  next  evening  who  was  talking  of  it  to  a  friend. 
"Oh,  it  was  all  very  pretty  and  pleasant,"  he  said, 
"  but  no  real  thought  in  it !  I  can't  remember  any 
thing  he  said,  can  you  ? "  "  Yes,"  replied  the  lady  ; 


20  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  he  said  '  shallow  brains  have  short 
The  wife  of  a  minister  with  whom  he  had  exchanged 
in  1830  said,  "Waldo  Emerson  came  last  Sunday 
and  preached  a  sermon  with  his  chin  in  the  air,  in 
scorn  of  the  whole  human  race." 

-^  During*  some  seasons  the  enjoyment  of  Emerson's 
lectures  was  prolonged  by  a  social  gathering  at  the 
hospitable  rooms  of  Mr.  James  Fisher  or  Miss  E.  P. 
Peabody.  Mr.  Emerson  would  offer  his  escort  to  one 
of  his  friends  to  walk  to  these  rooms,  and  Theodore 
Parker,  Mr.  Alcott,  and  other  favored  guests  followed. 
Here  the  timid  girl,  who  had  listened  in  rapt  awe 
and  delight  to  the  great  speaker,  was  made  happy  by 
a  grasp  of  his  hand  and  a  kindly  beam  from  his  eye ; 
and  the  tones  of  his  voice  filled  the  night  air  with 
music,  as  if  the  winds  of  heaven  were  playing  over 
an  ^Eolian  harp. 

The  influences  of  these  lectures,  from  1835  to  186 5, 
on  the  growing  mind  of  Boston  in  those  days,  is 
simply  inestimable.  In  the  language  of  one  of  his 
hearers,  "  His  words  not  only  fired  the  thoughts  of 
his  hearers,  quickened  their  consciences,  and  pierced 
their  hearts,  but  they  modelled  their  lives."  I  always 
recall  the  question  of  another  earnest  young  woman, 
which  shows  the  estimation  of  a  Boston  ian :  "Which 
could  you  have  least  spared  out  of  your  life,  —  the 
Common,  or  Ealpli  Waldo  Emerson  ?  "  Perhaps  none 
but  a  Boston  child,  to  whom  the  Common  had  been 
Nature's  very  self,  would  understand  the  force  of  the 
comparison.  Theodore  Parker  was  wont  to  "thank 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  21 

God  for  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson."  It  was  hard  to  tell  what  were  Nature's 
teachings  and  what  his,  they  were  so  fully  one. 
In  later  years,  —  from  1855  onward,  —  Emerson  was 
chosen  to  speak  for  Boston  on  many  important  oc 
casions.  He  spoke  very  frequently  to  the  great 
congregation  which  Theodore  Parker  had  gathered 
together,  and  gave  voice  to  the  feelings  of  heroism 
and  patriotism  called  forth  by  the  Civil  War.  He 
took  his  stand  by  the  hero  of  Harper's  Eerry  in 
1859,  in  a  lecture  before  the  Parker  Fraternity,  and 
at  the  meeting  for  sympathy  with  John  Brown's 
family  held  in  Tremont  Temple.  In  1863,  when  a 
grand  festival  was  held  in  the  Music  Hall  to  cele 
brate  Lincoln's  Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  he 
read  his  "  Boston  Hymn."  That  he  gave  this  name 
to  the  poem  embodying  his  lofty  ideal  of  American 
life,  shows  his  feeling  that  the  city  of  his  birth 
ought  to  stand  as  representative  of  the  principles 
and  virtues  which  should  lead  the  national  life. 
He  also  wrote  the  poem  for  the  centennial  cele 
bration,  in  1873,  of  the  destruction  of  the  tea  in 
Boston  Harbor ;  and  it  seems  as  if  the  spirit  of  boy 
hood  and  fun,  which  belonged  to  the  days  of  the 
lights  between  Xorth  End  and  South  End  on  the 
Common,  came  back  to  him  as  he  chronicled  the  half- 
mad  exploit  of  the  Indians  who  threw  the  tea  over 
board,  under  the  direction  of  Sam  Adams,  in  1773. 

A  certain  almost  forgotten  institution,  the  Town 
and  Country  Club,  where  Concord  and  Boston  were 


22  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

expected  to  meet  and  exchange  the  wisdom  of  the 
world  and  of  Nature,  was  established  by  Mr.  Alcott 
about  1848,  and  Mr.  Emerson  and  others  heartily 
joined  in  the  scheme.  Great  was  the  indignation 
among  the  faithful  women  who  found  that  member 
ship  was  confined  to  one  sex.  The  word  "  club  "  had 
no  feminine  then.  Some  of  the  aggrieved  sex  perpe 
trated  a  poem  to  express  their  feelings,  —  of  which  I 
can  only  remember  a  comparison  with  Socrates,  who 
did  not  scorn  the  wisdom  of  Diotima.  To  the  "  Par 
liaments  of  the  Times  "  and  other  good  meetings  held 
there,  however,  women  were  cordially  invited ;  and  it 
was  delightful  to  see  the  eager  pleasure  with  which 
Mr.  Emerson  listened  to  every  speaker.  When  the 
New  England  Women's  Club  was  formed,  in  1865, 
he  was  at  once  made  an  honorary  member.  He  fre 
quently  came  to  its  meetings,  and  read  some  of  his 
most  personal  and  charming  papers  there.  Among 
these  was  the  first  draught  of  his  reminiscences  of 
his  beloved  Aunt  Mary,  since  published  in  the  "  At 
lantic."  In  his  letters  to  Carlyle  he  alludes  to  his 
Boston  Saturday  Club,  as  if  he  had  there  found  a 
congenial  circle.  He  always  delighted  in  meeting 
thoughtful  men,  whose  pursuits  differed  from  his 
own ;  and  this  was  what  the  Saturday  Club  gave 
him,  from  1856  till  1880. 

Mr.  Emerson  was  bom  in  Boston,  married  a  Bosto- 
nian  in  1829,  preached  and  lectured  in  Boston,  and 
was  a  member  of  Boston  society  for  many  years, 
though  his  home  was  twenty  miles  away  in  Concord. 


EMERSON  AXD  BOSTON.  23 

What  Boston  thought  of  him  I  have  pointed  put; 
but  the  tables  are  now  turned,  and  what  Emerson 
thought  of  Boston  is  more  important  than  what  a 
Boston  clique  once  thought  of  him.  In  Ins  corre 
spondence  with  Carlyle  we  catch  many  hints  of  his 
feeling  about  the  good  city.  That  he  looked  upon  it 
as  having  a  pretty  distinct  individuality  and  character 
is  very  evident,  and  this  trait  of  Boston  was  certainly 
dear  to  him.  It  is  one  way  in  which  we  recognize 
the  influence  of  the  city.  He  was  the  least  egotis 
tical  of  men ;  but  he  guarded  the  sacredness  of  indi 
vidual  personality  most  jealously,  and  was  a  true 
idealist  in  always  insisting  that  it  be  kept  in  due 
relation  to  the  universal 

He  was  not  blind  to  the  faults  of  his  native  town, 
and  knew  how  he  was  regarded  by  many  ;  but  he  was 
more  interested  in  the  recognition  of  Carlyle's  merit, 
in  1836-1838,  than  of  his  own.  Speaking  to  Carlyle 
about  a  friendly  notice  of  his  work  by  Alexander  H. 
Everett,  he  says :  "  I  am  delighted,  for  this  man  rep 
resents  a  clique  to  which  I  am  a  stranger,  and  which 
I  supposed  might  not  love  you.  It  must  be  you  shall 
succeed  when  Saul  prophesies."  He  seems  proud 
and  hopeful  of  the  mental  condition  of  Boston  as  tried 
by  the  Carlyle  test.  He  "  hopes  to  have  a  work  on 
the  First  Philosophy  in  Boston,"  and  does  not  doubt 
its  reception.  "  Boston  contains  some  genuine  taste 
for  literature,  and  a  good  deal  of  traditional  reverence 
for  it,"  he  adds ;  and  he  evidently  has  satisfaction 
and  pleasure  in  the  reception  of  his  lectures,  which 


24  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

he  "found  much  indulgence  in  reading."  He  fully 
recognized  that  he  had  found  his  place  in  the  Lyceum 
at  Boston,  and  that  it  depended  upon  the  speaker  to 
make  of  it  what  he  could.  "I  see  not  why  this  is 
not  the  most  flexible  of  all  organs  of  opinion,  from 
its  popularity  and  its  newness,  permitting  you  to  say 
what  you  think,  without  any  shackles  of  prescription. 
.  .  .  You  may  handle  every  member  and  relation  of 
humanity.  What  could  Homer,  Socrates,  or  Saint  Paul 
say,  that  cannot  be  said  here  ?  "  He  adds  (this  was 
in  1837),  "  I  find  myself  so  much  more  and  freer  on 
the  platform  of  the  lecture-room  than  in  the  pulpit, 
that  I  shall  not  much  more  use  the  last ;  and  do  now 
only  in  a  little  country  chapel  at  the  request  of  simple 
men,  to  whom  I  sustain  no  other  relation  than  that 
of  preacher.  But  I  preach  in  the  lecture-room,  and 
then  it  tells,  for  there  is  no  prescription.  You  may 
laugh,  weep,  reason,  sing,  sneer,  or  pray,  according 
to  your  genius.  It  is  the  new  pulpit,  and  very 
much  in  vogue  with  my  northern  countrymen.  The 
audience  is  of  all  classes,  and  its  character  will 
be  determined  always  by  the  name  of  the  lec 
turer.  Why  may  you  not,"  he  says  to  Carlyle,  "give 
the  reins  to  your  wit,  your  pathos,  your  philosophy, 
and  become  that  good  despot  which  the  virtuous 
orator  is  ? " 

He  identifies  himself  with  the  city,  and  says,  "  We 
could  easily  get  up  for  you  a  course  of  lectures  in 
Boston ;  "  but  during  the  "  storm  in  our  wash-bowl," 
which  followed  the  Address  at  the  Divinity  School, 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  25 

in  1838,  he  will  not  involve  Carlyle  in  his  supposed 
unpopularity.  How  soon  any  such  feeling  against 
Mm  was  dissipated,  however,  is  shown  by  the  full 
attendance  at  his  next  course  of  lectures.  His  "  Bos 
ton  Parish  "  did  not  secede  from  him.  In  this  parish, 
as  he  says,  were  <f  all  the  bright  boys  and  girls  in 
New  England,  quite  ignorant  of  each  other,  .  .  .  who 
do  not  wish  to  go  into  trade,  and  do  not  like  morning 
calls  and  evening  parties.  They  are  all  religious,  but 
hate  the  churches ;  they  reject  all  the  ways  of  living 
of  other  men,  but  have  none  to  offer  in  their  stead." 
He  must  have  felt  the  fullest  recognition  of  his 
thought  by  his  audiences  ;  and  in  his  relation  to  them 
was  the  happy  blending  of  fellow-citizenship  with 
the  fresh  fragrance  of  his  country  home.  Even  "  the 
solid  men  of  Boston "  will  understand  Carlyle ;  and 
he  dares  to  suggest  that  "a  prayer  from  Boston, 
Massachusetts,  is  as  worthy  of  serious  and  prompt 
granting  as  one  from  Edinburgh  or  Oxford." 

At  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  which  he  loved  to  fre 
quent,  he  had  read  Carlyle's  "Diamond  Necklace" 
and  the  "  Mirabeau  "  three  weeks  before  his  presenta 
tion  copy  came ;  and  as  we  read  these  lines,  a  vis 
ion  of  the  rapt  face  and  intent  attitude  with  which  he 
seized  the  new  thoughts  of  his  friend  rises  before  us. 
Oh !  happy  city,  where  such  men  lived  and  read  ! 

Yes,  Emerson  was  ours.  We  claim  him  by  birth,  by 
blood,  by  mutual  service  rendered,  by  the  indissoluble 
ties  of  gratitude,  by  steadfast,  unfailing  love.  There 
is  a  Boston  of  degraded  politics,  of  noisy  bluster,  of 


26  THE   GENIUS    OF  EMERSON. 

scramble  for  wealth,  which  was  not  his,  and  does  not 
bear  his  seal  upon  it.  But  he  was  patient  even  with 
this  rough,  coarse  element ;  and  in  spite  of  it,  as  he 
stood  by  the  ballot-box,  he  believed  that  the  majority 
of  men  tried  to  vote  right,  and  he  never  despaired 
of  the  uplifting  of  the  masses.  There  is  another 
Boston  whose  blood,  running  blue  in  its  veins,  un 
stirred  by  sympathy  with  the  groans  of  the  slave, 
and  intrenched  in  egotistic  pride,  despaired  of  the 
Republic,  and  sought  to  erect  itself  into  an  aristoc 
racy  of  wealth  or  learning.  This  Boston  strove  to 
throw  scorn  upon  the  higher  law,  and  to  ridicule  the 
prophet  whose  truth  it  could  neither  receive  nor 
understand.  But  lie  knew  well  what  a  thin  crust  of 
selfishness  overlay  the  real  deep  heart  of  humanity 
which  was  underneath  it ;  and  he  rejoiced  when  the 
sons  of  the  men  who  in  1850—1852  had  driven  the 
fugitive  slave  out  of  their  harbor,  and  closed  their 
doors  upon  Kossuth,  gave,  in  the  Civil  War  ten  years 
after,  their  young  lives  for  their  country,  in  tardy 
reparation  for  the  wrongs  of  the  slave.  Emerson's 
Boston  held  "  men  whom  to  name,  the  voice  breaks 
and  the  eye  is  wet," --men  "of  noblest  affections, 
whose  name  is  a  motive-power  and  regulator  to  our 
city,  —  refusing  all  office,  but  impossible  to  spare." 
During  the  Civil  War,  he  says :  "  A  multitude  of 
young  men  are  growing  up  here  of  high  promise,  and 
I  compare  gladly  the  social  poverty  of  my  youth  with 
the  power  on  which  these  draw.  The  Lowell  race 
again  in  our  war  yielded  three  or  four  martyrs  so  able 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  27 

and  tender  and  true  that  James  Russell  Lowell  can 
not  allude  to  them  in  verse  or  prose  but  the  public 
is  melted  anew."  "All  these,"  he  says  to  Caiiyle, 
"know  you  well,  have  read  and  will  read  you, — 
yes,  and  will  prize  and  use  your  benefaction  to  the 
College  [at  Cambridge] ;  and  I  believe  it  would  add 
hope,  health,  and  strength  to  you  to  come  and  see 
them."  I  cannot  but  regret  that  Carlyle's  bequest  of 
books  did  not  go  to  the  Boston  Library,  open  to  all, 
and  furnishing  help  to  students  from  Canada  to  Cali 
fornia;  but  the  Cambridge  scholar  rejoiced  at  the 
association  of  his  dear  friend  with  his  Alma  Mater. 

Oh,  blessed  heart !  ever  young,  that  rejoiced  thus 
in  the  new  life  and  the  rich  opportunity  offered  to 
others,  never  groaning  that  the  former  times  were 
better  than  these,  and  incapable  of  despair  of  the  race 
that  God  had  begotten.  But  while  he  felt  the  kind  re 
ception  and  sympathetic  response  from  his  young  and 
enthusiastic  auditors,  like  every  true  artist  of  that 
day  he  saw  the  want  of  intelligent,  thorough  criti 
cism ;  and  in  his  thought  of  going  to  England,  the 
hope  entered  of  meeting  there  critics  who  would 
rouse  him  to  put  forth  his  full  strength.  "  At  home, 
no  man  makes  any  proper  demand  on  me,  and  the 
audience  I  address  is  a  handful  of  men  and  women 
too  widely  scattered  to  dictate  to  me  that  which  they 
are  justly  entitled  to  say." 

In  the  dark  days  of  the  Antislavery  contest,  and 
during  the  war,  he  was  not  separated  from  his  fellow- 
citizens.  His  word  was  sought  and  heeded  in  every 


28  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

crisis ;  and  if  his  quiet  manner  and  scholarly  habits 
kept  him  from  the  excitement  of  the  political  conven 
tion,  he  was  always  squarely  on  the  side  of  right  and 
freedom.  "  As  if  every  sane  man  were  not  an  Aboli 
tionist  ! "  he  said,  in  his  speech  on  the  outrage  against 
Charles  Sunnier.  This  speech,  made  at  a  meeting  in 
Concord,  reported  at  the  time  in  the  daily  newspapers, 
and  then  almost  forgotten  by  its  author  till  recalled 
to  his  memory  at  the  death  of  Mr.  Sumner,  deserves 
to  be  placed  beside  the  famous  orations  of  antiquity 
for  its  condensed  power  of  thought  and  feeling,  and 
for  its  influence  in  changing  the  minds  of  men.  It 
was  the  best  voice  of  New  England  and  of  Boston  that 
spoke  through  him,  as  he  tenderly  and  reverently 
closed  with  these  words  :  — 

"  I  wish  that  lie  may  know  the  shudder  of  terror  that 
ran  through  all  this  community  on  the  first  tidings  of  this 
brutal  attack.  Let  him  hear  that  every  man  in  New  Eng 
land  loves  his  virtues ;  that  every  mother  thinks  of  him 
as  the  protector  of  families ;  that  every  friend  of  freedom- 
thinks  him  the  friend  of  freedom.  And  if  our  arms  at 
this  distance  cannot  defend  him  from  assassins,  we  confide 
the  defence  of  a  life  so  precious  to  all  honorable  men  and 
true  patriots,  and  to  the  Almighty  Maker  of  men." 

No  one  knew  better  than  Emerson  how  all  the 
surroundings  and  experiences  of  life  go  to  make  up 

"  The  being  that  I  am, 

When  I  am  most  myself." 

While  his  horizon  was  large,  and  many  influences 
came  into  his  life  from  inheritance  and  surroundings, 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  29 

there  are  marked  traits  in  his  character  which  we 
caniiot  but  ascribe  to  the  fact  that  Boston  was  his 
birthplace.  "  Boston  is  the  hub  of  the  solar  system ; 
you  could  n't  pry  that  out  of  a  Boston  man  if  you 
had  the  tire  of  all  creation  for  a  crowbar/'  says  the 
witty  Dr.  Holmes  ;  and  Emerson  never  needed  any 
other  spot  from  which  to  draw  the  great  circle  of 
infinity  but  that  on  which  he  stood.  The  relation 
of  man  to  the  universe  was  as  confident  as  it  was 
modest.  That  in  him  this  sense  of  relation  was  per 
fect  in  humility  and  courtesy,  while  in  other  men 
it  was  blatant  and  brazen,  does  not  prove  that  the 
feeling  sprang  from  no  common  source.  The  "wee 
modest  crimson-tipped  "  daisy  has  to  own  its  cousin- 
ship  with  the  flaunting  white-weed  and  showy 
Rudbeckia.  But  with  all  her  pride,  Boston  loves 
moderation  and  understatement  and  the  fine  re 
serve  of  the  gentleman.  "  I  wish  cities  could  teach 
their  best  lesson  of  quiet  manners,"  says  Emerson. 
She  does  not  take  on  tricks  of  speech,  but  calls  the 
dear  old  Common  by  its  homely  name.  How  thor 
oughly  Emersonian  is  this  trait  1  It  is  English, 
indeed,  and  he  loved  the  English  blood  and  speech, 
and  I  think  had  no  special  fondness  for  any  other 
tongue.  Yet,  like  Boston,  whose  nickname  of  the 
American  Athens  is  well  bestowed,  he  was  rather  a 
Greek  than  an  Englishman,  —  Greek  in  the  fineness 
of  his  perceptions,  in  his  love  for  the  subtler- ele 
ments  of  thought,  his  belief  in  the  purity  of  beauty ; 
he  was  full  of  delight  in  new  ideas,  strong  in  his  own 


30  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

individuality,  but  ready  for  all  mental  hospitality. 
Yet  he  was  the  Greek  blended  with  the  Puritan,  — 
for  as  in  Boston  the  old  leaven  of  that  strong  Puritan 
race  is  still  working,  so  in  him  was  the  stern  Calvin 
ism  of  his  fathers,  which  believed  in  eternal  decrees, 
and  in  the  absoluteness  and  omnipotence  of  right. 
The  same  fidelity  to  belief  which  obliged  the  men  of 
Boston  and  Salem  to  obey  the  letter  of  the  word,  and 
"  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live,"  led  them  on  to  the  mod 
ern  radicalism  which  is  equally  loyal  and  in  its  way 
sometimes  equally  narrow.  Emerson  was  saved  from 
the  extremes  of  the  past  or  the  present  by  the  sanity 
of  his  nature  and  the  entire  absence  of  personal 
regards.  Yet  without  his  line  of  Puritan  descent 
he  would  not  have  been  the  man  he  was,  —  relin 
quishing  office,  friends,  and  public  regard  for  the 
sake  of  truth.  The  Puritan  spirit  breathes  through 
all  his  brave  utterances  :  — 

"  When  duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 
The  youth  replies,  I  can." 

It  was  only  in  the  city  that  he  could  have  had  the 
sympathy  of  such  a  group  of  scholars  and  thinkers 
as  he  found  in  Boston,  and  he  well  understood  how 
much  he  owed  to  relation  with  other  men.  While 
he  found  the  benefit  of  solitude,  it  was  because  he 
could  carry  into  it  such  a  precious  freight  of  thought 
which  he  had  garnered  from  life. 

He  says  :  "  'T  is  wonderful  what  sublime  lessons  I 
have  once  and  again  read  on  the  bulletin-boards  in 
the  streets.  Everybody  has  been  wrong  in  his  guess 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  31 

except  good  women,  who  never  despair  of  an  ideal 
right."  He  loved  solitude,  but  he  was  closely  linked 
with  society,  saying,  "  I  follow,  I  find,  the  fortunes 
of  my  country  in  my  privatest  ways." 

Mrs.  Cheney  here  read,  as  illustrative  of  what  she 
had  said  concerning  Emerson's  relation  to  the  Boston 
of  his  youth,  the  following  letter  from  Miss  Sarah 
Clark,  a  pupil  of  Allston  in  art  and  of  Emerson  in 

thought : — 

MARIETTA,  Ohio,  July  20,  1884. 

DEAR  MRS.  CHENEY,  —  I  would  I  were  with  you  at 
Concord  on  the  day  to  which  you  invite  me  to  contribute. 
This  invitation  gratifies  ine  immensely ;  but  I  doubt  if  I 
can  find  anything  to  say  on  the  proposed  subject.  I  have 
never  thought  of  Emerson  as  related  to  Boston.  Yet  it 
may  not  be  an  unfruitful  theme.  I  remember  when  he 
announced  six  lectures  to  be  read  there,  I  wondered  how 
one  who  seemed  so  wholly  to  belong  to  "  thought's  inte 
rior  sphere  "  could  find  anything  to  say  to  a  public  as 
sembly.  But  he  already  had  his  public  which  came  at  his 
call;  and  when  those  clear-cut  sentences,  those  selected 
words,  fell  from  his  lips,  it  became  evident  that  he  had  a 
power  of  throwing  light  into  his  abstractions  that  could 
easily  admit  many  minds  to  that  illumination.  His  voice, 
his  manner  of  saying  these  wise  words,  you  all  remember. 
Was  there  not  a  note  of  authority,  as  well  as  of  persuasive 
sweetness,  that  made  all  his  hearers  take  his  words  to 
heart  1  It  was  as  if  behind  him  some  other  power  had 
spoken.  It  may  be  that  Boston  produced  him  ;  but  I 
think  rather  it  was  a  singular  good-fortune,  or  Heaven's 
grace,  that  gave  him  to  us. 


32  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

His  little  public  grew  year  by  year.  Those  who  at  first 
cried,  "Is  this  man  mad?  "  came  to  respect  the  pure  san 
ity  of  his  utterances  ;  his  influence  was  felt  in  circles  wider 
and  wider,  till  he  became  a  power  in  the  whole  intellectual 
world.  Whether  he  was  or  was  not  a  product  of  Boston, 
he  certainly  loved  his  city  and  his  country.  Who  has 
nttered  better  words  of  love  than  these  to  "  Eoston  "1  — 

"  The  rocky  nook,  with  hill-tops  three, 

Looked  eastward  from  the  farms, 
And  twice  each  day  the  flowing  sea 
Took  Boston  in  its  arms." 

Or  who  has  said  a  better  word  for  our  earliest  battle 
ground  than  this  immortal  verse  ?  — 

"  By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 

And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

Or  the  4th  of  July  Ode  read  at  Concord  in  1857,  with 
its  grandly  poetic  opening  image  1  — 

"  Oh,  tenderly  the  haughty  day 
Fills  his  blue  urn  with  fire; 
One  morn  is  in  the  mighty  heaven, 
And  one  in  our  desire." 

These,  with  the  "Emancipation  Hymn,"  show  the  burn 
ing  heart  of  a  patriot  unchilled  by  the  philosophy  that 
was  sometimes  accused  of  coldness ;  but  in  his  personal 
intellectual  relation  with  many  minds  what  seeds  were 
sown,  and  what  fructification  ensued  !  Immeasurable 
forces  these,  and  of  unmeasurable  duration.  They  cannot 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  33 

be  counted,  they  cannot  be  estimated.  Emerson  was  pa 
triot  to  the  heart's  core ;  but  he  was  not  only  a  patriot,  he 
was  an  intellectual  force  that  valued  liberty  wherever  man 
is  found.  He  was  not  merely  an  intellect,  but  he  had  the 
poet's  grasp,  which  holds  in  one  hand  the  seen  and  the 
unseen.  He  was  not  merely  the  poet,  he  was  like  the  sun 
which  searches  out  and  stimulates  life-seeds  hidden  in  the 
dark  earth,  waiting  for  this  warm  energy  to  unfold  them. 
Concord  is  right  to  talk  of  him ;  he  is  her  best  subject. 

But  I  should  weary  you  long  before  I  should  ex 
haust  the  countless  streams  into  which  my  theme 
runs.  Why  should  I  speak  longer,  when  he  has 
spoken  for  himself  ?  The  poem  of  "  Boston,"  read 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  Dec.  16,  1873,  on  the  Centennial 
Anniversary  of  the  destruction  of  the  Tea  in  Boston 
Harbor,  is  written  with  the  freedom  of  a  boyish 
muse,  and  the  irregular  stanzas  seem  to  pour  out 
like  a  gurgling  brook  from  the  overflow  of  his  mem 
ory  and  heart.  Who  that  saw  and  heard  him  as  he 
read  it  will  ever  forget  the  youthful  gleam  in  his 
face,  and  the  loving  tones  of  his  voice  ?  And  how 
clearly  did  his  own  boyhood  and  youth  in  the  old 
town  rise  up  to  his  mind  as  he  spoke  these  lines :  — 

BOSTON. 

The  rocky  nook,  \vith  hill-tops  three, 

Looked  eastward  from  the  farms, 
And  twice  each  day  the  flowing  sea 

Took  Boston  in  its  arms  ; 
The  men  of  yore  were  stout  and  poor, 
And  sailed  for  bread  to  every  shore. 
3 


34  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

And  where  they  went,  on  trade  intent, 
They  did  what  freemen  can  ; 

Their  dauntless  ways  did  all  men  praise,  — 
The  merchant  was  a  man  ; 

The  world  was  made  for  honest  trade,  — 

To  plant  and  eat  be  none  afraid. 


Old  Europe  groans  with  palaces,  — 

Has  lords  enough  and  more  ; 
"We  plant  and  build  by  foaming  seas 

A  city  of  the  poor  ; 
For  day  by  day  could  Boston  Bay 
Their  honest  labor  overpay. 

We  grant  no  dukedoms  to  the  few, 
We  hold  like  rights  and  shall,  — 

Equal  on  Sunday  in  the  pew, 
On  Monday  in  the  mall  ; 

For  what  avail  the  plough  or  sail, 

Or  land  or  life,  if  freedom  fail  ? 

The  noble  craftsman  we  promote, 

Disown  the  knave  and  fool  ; 
Each  honest  man  shall  have  his  vote, 

Each  child  shall  have  his  school  ; 
A  union  then  of  honest  men, 
Or  union  nevermore  again. 

They  laughed  to  know  the  world  so  wide  ; 

The  mountains  said,  ' '  Good  day  ; 
We  greet  you  well,  you  Saxon  men, 

Up  with  your  towns  and  stay  !  " 
The  world  was  made  for  honest  trade,  — 
To  plant  and  eat  be  none  afraid. 

"  For  you,"  they  said,  "no  barriers  be, 

For  you  no  sluggard  rest  ; 
Each  street  leads  downward  to  the  sea, 

Or  landward  to  the  West." 


EMERSON  AND  BOSTON.  35 

O  happy  town  beside  the  sea, 

Whose  roads  lead  everywhere  to  all ; 
Than  thine  no  deeper  moat  can  tie, 

No  stouter  fence,  no  steeper  wall  ! 

Kings  shook  with  fear,  old  empires  crave 

The  secret  force  to  find, 
"Which  fired  the  little  State  to  save 

The  rights  of  all  mankind. 

But  right  is  might  through  all  the  world, 

Province  to  province  faithful  clung, 
Through  good  and  ill  the  war-bolt  hurled, 

Till  Freedom  cheered  and  the  joy-bells  rung. 

The  sea  returning  day  by  day 

Restores  the  world-wide  mart ; 
So  let  each  dweller  on  the  Bay 

Fold  Boston  in  his  heart, 
Till  these  echoes  be  choked  with  snows, 
Or  over  the  town  blue  ocean  Hows. 

Let  the  blood  of  her  hundred  thousands 

Throb  in  each  manly  vein, 
And  the  wit  of  all  her  wisest 

Make  sunshine  in  her  brain  ; 
For  you  can  teach  the  lightning  speech, 
And  round  the  globe  your  voices  reach. 

And  each  shall  care  for  other, 

And  each  to  each  shall  bend,  — 
To  the  poor  a  noble  brother, 

To  the  good  an  equal  friend. 

A  blessing  through  the  ages  thus 

Shield  all  thy  roofs  and  towers  ! 
God  with  the  fathers,  so  with  us, 

Thou  darling  town  of  ours  ! 


36  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


II. 

EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT. 

PASSAGES  FROM  THE  DIARY  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF  MR. 
ALCOTT, — READ  AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  SCHOOL  OF  PHI 
LOSOPHY,  JULY  23,  1884. 

MR.  SANBORN  said :  Among  the  topics  proposed 
for  the  discussion  we  are  about  to  commence  con 
cerning  the  "  Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson,"  was 
one  on  "  Emerson's  Friendships."  But  not  the  least 
of  the  misfortunes  which  the  continued  illness  of 
Mr.  Alcott  brings  to  us,  is  this  one, — that  it  deprives 
us  of  the  voice  and  the  thought  of  that  friend  of 
Emerson  who  stood  beside  him  for  nearly  half  a 
century,  and  who  could  best  have  spoken  on  this 
delightful  theme.  Among  the  qualities  of  our  friend 
and  master,  none  was  more  conspicuous  or  more 
charming  than  his  loyalty  in  friendship.  His  Arab 
in  the  poem  "  Hermione,"  who  in  other  passages 
utters  the  sentiment  of  Emerson,  nowhere  speaks 
more  truly  than  in  saying, 

"  I  am  of  a  lineage 
That  each  for  each  doth  fast  engage  ; " 


E11ERSON  AXD  ALCOTT.  37 

and  that  noble  poem  "which  precedes  the  essay  on 
"Friendship"  describes  no  friend  more  faithfully  than 
Emerson  himself :  — 

"  I  fancied  he  was  fled,  — 
But,  after  many  a  year, 
Glowed  unexhausted  kindliness 
Like  daily  sunrise  there." 

To  no  person  was  this  high  companionship  per 
mitted  for  a  longer  and  more  intimate  term  than  to 
Mr.  Alcott;  and  we  have  therefore  asked  him  to 
allow  us  the  public  reading  from  his  Diaries  and 
Correspondence  in  the  last  fifty  years,  of  a  few 
passages  which  illustrate  the  relation  between  the 
two  friends,  and  which  also  fix  the  date  of  certain 
events  in  Emerson's  career. 

Mr.  Alcott  first  met  Emerson,  and  heard  him 
speak  from  Dr.  Channing's  pulpit,  in  1829;  but  their 
acquaintance  did  not  begin  until  after  our  Connecti 
cut  Pestalozzi  had  returned  from  Philadelphia  and 
opened  in  Boston  his  celebrated  school  for  children 
at  the  Masonic  Temple,  in  1834r-1835.  Early  in  1835, 
and  before  knowing  Emerson,  Mr.  Alcott  had  spent 
an  evening  with  Allston  the  painter,  at  his  house  in 
Cambridgeport ;  and  as  these  two  men  of  genius  — 
Allston  and  Emerson  —  had  many  traits  in  common, 
we  may  first  hear  what  Mr.  Alcott  said  in  his  Diary 
of  Jan.  13,  1835,  concerning  the  artist :  — 

"  I  was  particularly  impressed  with  the  uncommon 
artlessuess  and  modesty  of  this  man  of  genius,  —  a  man 
of  higher  endowments  and  skill  in  the  art  of  painting 


38  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

than  perhaps  any  other  person  in  our  country.  I  felt 
myself  in  the  presence  of  a  superior  spirit,  —  an  external 
shaping  of  the  higher  traits  of  the  human  soul ;  the 
power  of  genius  was  there.  This  is  a  man  of  genius ; 
and  how  rarely  does  the  spirit,  while  invested  in  flesh, 
behold  such  manifestation  of  its  inner  life  !  How  rarely 
doth  the  soul  come  forth  in  shapes  of  beauty,  of  truth, 
and  breathe  into  the  dead  forms  of  matter  and  of  words 
the  inspiring  life  of  its  own  divinity  !  And  yet  this 
same  man  —  this  spirit  of  celestial  energy  —  lives  in  an 
obscure  mansion,  away  from  the  noise  and  stir  of  every 
day  life ;  seldom  is  his  name  pronounced  j  and  who  are 
those  that  behold  his  face  ]  Verily,  he  knoweth  his  mis 
sion  ;  he  showeth  himself  only  to  the  spiritually  visaged, 
like  himself." 

How  exactly  is  Emerson,  the  seer  and  poet,  de 
picted  in  this  sketch  of  the  superior  artist !  A 
few  weeks  later,  after  several  interviews  with  Dr. 
Channing,  then  at  the  height  of  his  renown  and  in 
fluence  as  a  preacher  in  Boston,  Mr.  Alcott  goes  to 
hear  Emerson  lecture  (Feb.  5,  1835),  and  makes  this 
inadequate  record:  — 

"  This  evening  I  heard  Eev.  Mr.  Emerson  give  a 
lecture,  at  the  Temple,  on  the  'Character  of  Michael 
Angelo.'  This  is  the  second  lecture  of  a  course  embracing 
Biographical  Sketches  of  eminent  men,  before  the  Society 
for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge.  I  did  not  hear 
the  first  lecture.  Miss  Peabody  informs  me  that  it  was 
a  beautiful  one.  The  speaker  took  a  general  view  of  the 
Theory  of  Life,  and  of  the  means  to  be  used  in  order  to 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  39 

realize  it.  Few  men  among  us  take  nobler  views  of  the 
mission,  powers,  and  destinies  of  man  than  Mr.  Emerson. 
I  hope  the  people  of  this  city  will  go  and  learn  of  him  the 
conditions  of  virtue  and  wisdom, — by  what  self-denial, 
what  exertions,  these  are  to  be  sought  and  won.  The 
lives  of  the  great  and  good  are  examples  of  this  strife  of 
the  soul." 

Again,  Feb.  12,  1835,  he  says:  — 

"  I  heard  Mr.  Emerson's  lecture  on  '  Martin  Luther,' 
at  the  Temple.  There  was  much  in  it  bespeaking  a  high 
philosophy  of  life  as  conceived  in  the  mind  of  the 
speaker  ;  and  the  application  of  the  analysis  of  Luther's 
character  was  beautiful  and  profound.  He  deemed  Luther 
not  less  a.  poet  than  a  practical  man;  and  if  not  a  philoso 
pher  in  the  common  sense  of  the  term,  he  was  a  prophet, 
speaking  and  acting  from  an  imperative  above  reason." 

The  Diary  contains  no  more  notices  of  this  course 
of  lectures,  in  which  was  that  remarkable  one  on 
"  Milton,"  afterwards  printed  in  the  "  Xorth  Ameri 
can  Eeview  ; "  nor  do  we  find  records  of  interview 
and  conversation  between  the  two  friends.  But  that 
they  were  already  becoming  intimate  is  seen  by  this 
entry  of  July  12,  1835  :  — 

"  A  few  days  since,  Mrs.  Morrison,  of  Philadelphia,  came 
in  town,  bringing  me  letters  from  Mr.  Eussell.  Last 
evening  she  saw  several  of  our  friends,  —  persons  with 
whom  we  wished  her  to  be  made  acquainted.  Among 
these  were  the  following  :  Mr.  Waldo  Emerson,  Charles 
Emerson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  D.  L.  Child,  Mr.  S.  J.  May,  Miss 


40  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Elizabeth  and  Miss  Mary  Peabody  [now  Mrs.  Horace 
Mann],  Mrs.  Bliss  [now  Mrs.  George  Bancroft],  Miss  Mary 
Emerson,  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar,  and  others." 

Here  we  see  the  names  of  several  persons  of  that 
Concord  circle  into  which  Mr.  Alcott  afterwards 
came  ;  but  as  yet  he  had  never  visited  the  town. 
Later  in  the  summer,  August  23,  he  writes  :  — 

"  I  have  been  in  attendance  at  the  American  Institute 
of  Instruction,  —  at  the  State  House  in  the  daytime,  at 
Chauncy  Hall  in  the  evening.  On  Thursday,  at  eleven 
o'clock,  Rev.  Mr.  Furness,  of  Philadelphia,  gave  an  intro 
ductory  address  on  the  '  Spirit  of  the  True  Teacher,'  —  an 
eloquent  performance.  At  4  p.  M.  Rev.  Mr.  Emerson,  of 
Concord,  gave  a  lecture  on  the  '  Means  of  Inspiring  a  Taste 
for  English  Literature.' 

"  These  two  lectures  were  of  a  more  spiritual  character 
than  have  been  presented  to  the  Institute  on  former  occa 
sions.  They  inspire  hope.  They  are  proofs  that  some 
times  more  is  felt  in  the  community  than  the  material. 
The  members  of  the  Institute  —  many  of  them  teachers 
from  the  country,  persons  of  narrow  views  and  superficial 
attainments  —  were  unprepared  to  follow  the  lecturers; 
yet  they  seemed  to  listen  with  interest,  and  to  feel,  if 
they  did  not  appreciate,  the  truths  announced." 

Through  this  year  (1835)  Mr.  Alcott  was  deep  in 
the  study  of  Plato  and  the  Bible,  which  he  found 
in  accord  with  each  other  and  with  his  own  thoughts; 
and  he  was  also  in  close  communication  with  those 
readers  of  Carlyle  who  were  inviting  him  to  New 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  41 

England,  and  were  proposing  a  new  magazine,  to  be 
called  "  The  Transcendentalist,"  of  which  mention  is 
made  in  Emerson's  letters  to  Carlyle  of  March  12,  and 
April  30, 1835.  Of  this  project  Emerson  wrote:  — 

"  Dr.  Charming  lay  awake  all  night,  he  told  my  friend 
last  week,  because  he  had  learned  in  the  evening  that  some 
young  men  proposed  to  issue  a  journal,  to  be  called  '  The 
Trauscendentalist,'  as  the  organ  of  a  spiritual  philosophy. 
...  If  Mr.  Carlyle  would  undertake  a  journal  of  which 
we  have  talked  much,  but  which  we  have  never  yet  pro 
duced,  he  would  do  us  great  service,  and  we  feel  some  confi 
dence  that  it  could  be  made  to  secure  him  a  support.  It 
is  to  be  called  'The  Transcendentalist,'  or  'The  Spiritual 
Inquirer,'  or  the  like,  and  F.  H.  Hedge  was  to  be  the 
editor.  Hedge  is  just  leaving  our  neighborhood,  to  be 
settled  as  a  minister  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  off  in 
Maine,  and  entreats  that  you  will  edit  the  journal.  He 
will  write,  and  I  please  myself  with  thinking  I  shall  be 
able  to  write  under  such  auspices." 

To  this  invitation  Carlyle  listened  and  responded 
(May  13,  1835)  :  - 

"  The  Boston  '  Transcendentalist,'  whatever  the  fate  or 
merit  of  it  prove  to  be,  is  surely  an  interesting  symptom. 
There  must  be  things  not  dreamt  of  over  in  that  Trans 
oceanic  Parish,  and  I  shall  cordially  wish  well  to  this 
thing,  and  hail  it  as  the  sure  forerunner  of  things  better. 
Innumerable  tumults  of  Metaphysic  must  be  struggled 
through,  and  at  last  Transcendentalism  evolve  itself  as  the 
Euthanasia  of  Metaphysic  altogether.  May  it  be  sure  ! 
may  it  be  speedy  ! " 


42  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Mr.  Alcott's  record  of  this  premature  movement, 
which  found  expression  in  "The  Dial"  five  years 
later,  is  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Eussell  at  Philadel 
phia,  of  which  we  only  find  the  heads  given  in  his 
Diary  of  March,  1835.  These  are  the  following  :  — 

"  SPIRIT  OF  LIFE  IN  BOSTON.  —  Persons :  Dr.  Chan- 
ning.  Mr.  Allston,  Dr.  Follen,  Mr.  [James]  Walker,  Mr. 
Hedge,  Mr.  Emerson,  Mr.  H.  Ware,  Jr.,  Mr.  Waterston, 
[Father]  Taylor,  Mr.  [C.]  Francis,  Mr.  [G.]  Ripley,  Mr. 
May,  Miss  Peabody,  Mrs.  Follen,  Mrs.  Child. 

"  *  THE  TRANSCENDENTALISM'  —  Hedge,  Emerson,  Pea- 
body,  Clarke,  Ripley  [no  doubt  as  contributors]. 

"  Republication  of  Coleridge,  Abbott's  Works  [Rev. 
Jacob  Abbott],  '  North  American,'  '  Examiner,'  '  Observer.' 

"  READINGS.  —  Plato,  Coleridge,  Hesiod,  Boethius,  Bock- 
shirmer  [a  forgotten  German  writer  on  the  Will],  '  Sartor 
Resartus,'  T.  C.  Upham." 

What  effect  all  this  spiritual  movement  had  "on 
the  thought  of  -Mr.  Alcott  may  be  seen  in  his  Diary. 
His  mind  was  moving  on  the  same  lines  with  the 
mind  of  'Emerson,  and  they  read  in  part  the  same 
books.  Mr.  Alcott  writes,  from  March  to  August, 
1835:  — 

"  My  own  conceptions  of  life  are  confirmed  in  the  hap 
piest  manner -in  the  Platonic  theory.  In  Plato,  as  in  Jesus, 
do  I  find  the  Light  of  the  World,  even  the  supersensual 
light,  that  lighteth  every  one  who  cometh  into  the  world 
of  sense,  and  essayeth  to  regain  that  spirit  it  seemeth  to 
have  lost  by  the  incarnation  of  itself.  The  true  study  of 
man  is  man.  When  this  is  felt  as  it  ought  to  be,  natural 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  43 

science  will  receive  an  impulse  that  we  cannot  at  present 
conceive  of.  Then  we  shall  begin  at  the  beginning,  and 
not,  as  now,  at  the  end;  we  shall  trace  things  in  the 
order  of  their  production,  see  them  in  the  process  of  for 
mation,  growth,  consummation,  —  the  only  true  way  of 
apprehending  them,  the  method  of  philosophy.  With 
out  this  method  all  our  boasted  acquisitions  are  fragments, 
unintelligible  parts,  broken  members  of  a  whole,  whose 
outline  we  have  not  pictured  in  our  ideal,  and  therefore 
want  the  standard  by  which  to  resolve  these  parts  to  their 
true  place  in  the  great  Whole.  The  unity  of  truth  is 
wanting ;  glimpses  only  are  given  of  this  Whole,  and  we 
content  ourselves  with  the  dim  survey  of  parts,  becoming 
parts  ourselves.  ...  As  Man  is  my  study,  —  universal  as 
well  as  individual  man,  — man  in  his  elements,  embracing 
views  of  him  in  all  stages  of  his  career,  —  in  his  pre-exist- 
ent  life,  his  infancy,  childhood,  youth,  manhood,  decline, 
resumption  in  God,  —  so  doth  all  Nature,  in  its  manifold 
relations,  present  innumerable  topics  for  consideration,  as 
the  framework  and  emblem  of  this  same  Being.  Man,  the 
Incarnate  Spirit ;  God,  the  Absolute  Spirit ;  Creation,  the 
emblem  of  these  two,  —  such  are  my  topics  of  specula 
tion  and  inquiry.  As  in  the  morning  twilight  the  sun 
paints  in  the  horizon  the  radiant  glories  of  his  own  vis 
age  upon  the  clear  and  serene  azure,  announcing  to  the 
risen  world  the  coming  day ;  even  so  doth  the  Divinity, 
in  this  terrestrial  life,  shed  forth  on  the  dim  forms  of 
mind  and  matter  some  intimation  of  his  own  celestial 
visage ;  prophesying,  in  these  visible  and  invisible  things, 
the  coming  of  his  own  Day,  which  is  Eternity  :  of  his 
own  life,  which  is  Immortality,  and  Light  without 
obstruction." 


44  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

This  last  passage  is  dated  Aug.  4,  1835  ;  and  at  the 
close  of  the  month  (August  30),  after  listening  to  a 
sermon  by  Mr.  Hedge,  Mr.  Alcott  wrote  :  — 

"  The  spiritual  philosophy  appeared  as  the  life  of  this 
sermon.  Of  the  few  men  among  us  who  are  helievers  in 
this  philosophy,  the  following  are  the  most  interesting ; 
indeed,  they  comprise  all  the  thorough  disciples  of  the 
transcendent  and  metaphysical  life,  as  revealed  in  the 
theory  of  Jesus.  The  number  is,  however,  daily  increas 
ing  ;  for  a  spiritual  idea  has  gone  forth  in  our  community, 
and  the  religious  instinct  apprehends  its  glory.  Let  me 
arrange  these  prophets  of  the  present  time  according  to 
their  apprehension  of  the  spiritual  ideal  :  Dr.  Channing, 
Dr.  Follen,  Mr.  E.  W.  Emerson,  Mr.  Hedge,  Mr.  R  H. 
Dana,  Mr.  Furness,  Mr.  Allston,  Mr.  Walker,  Mr.  J.  F. 
Clarke,  Mr.  Peabody,  Mr.  Frothingham." 

At  a  later  date  Mr.  Alcott  placed  Emerson  at  the 
head  of  this  list,  where  he  properly  belonged,  and 
where  he  might  also  have  placed  his  own  name.  The 
two  brethren  were  drawing  closer  together;  and  a 
few  weeks  later  Mr.  Alcott  paid  his  first  visit  to 
Concord  (Oct.  17,  1835).  Under  date  of  Oct.  20, 
1835,  the  Diary  says  :  — 

"  On  Saturday  afternoon  I  came  to  Concord  with  Mr. 
George  P.  Bradford.  We  reached  the  residence  of  Mr. 
Emerson  after  a  ride  of  three  hours.  The  evening  was 
passed  in  very  interesting  conversation.  On  Sunday,  vari 
ous  topics  of  an  intellectual  and  spiritual  character  were 
resumed.  On  most  subjects  there  was  striking  conformity 
of  taste  and  opinion.  We  had  much  talk  on  the  character 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  45 

and  life  of  Christ.  On  this  there  was  some  disparity  of 
idea,  more  the  effect,  I  deem,  of  difference  of  association 
than  of  thought.  Mr.  Emerson's  fine  literary  taste  is 
sometimes  in  the  way  of  a  clear  and  hearty  acceptance  of 
the  spiritual.  Carlyle  is  his  ideal ;  his  portrait  I  saw  for 
the  first  time.  I  have  not  found  a  man  in  whose  whole 
mind  I  felt  more  sympathy  than  in  his.  These  two  per 
sons  [Mr.  and  Mrs.  Emerson]  have  and  represent  a  new  idea 
of  life.  I  have  found  a  man  who,  with  all  his  taste  for 
Grecian  literature  and  philosophy,  can  apprehend  some 
thing  spiritual  in  Christianity.  To  him  it  is  not  '  alto 
gether  foolishness ; '  for  he  has  the  sense  of  the  Human, 
and  the  love  and  faith  of  the  Pure  and  the  Perfect  in 
Universal  Man.  With  his  brother,  Mr.  Charles  Emerson, 
I  had  some  interesting  conversation.  He  has  much  of  his 
brother's  spirit.  They  are  both  scholarlike  in  their  views 
and  tastes,  and  yet  the  man  is  not  lost  in  the  scholar.  To 
have  a  few  such  friends  is  the  joy  and  comfort  of  life.  In 
communion  with  such  the  Spirit  finds  itself,  and,  for  the 
brief  time  of  their  presence,  forgets  its  independent  life,  — 
being  lost  in  the  common  Being  of  Humanity." 

The  day  on  which  Mr.  Alcott  returned  to  Boston 
from  this  Concord  visit  (Oct.  21, 1835)  was  that  when 
Garrison  was  mobbed  in  the  city  by  "  gentlemen  of 
property  and  standing;"  and  the  first  errand,  after 
reaching  Boston,  was  to  visit,  with  Mrs.  Alcott,  the 
Antislavery  leader  in  the  Leverett  Street  Jail,  where 
he  was  confined  by  the  authorities.  At  an  earlier 
date  in  the  same  year  (August  1),  the  Diary  records 
Mr.  Alcott' s  presence  at  an  emancipation  meeting  in 
Julien  Hall,  where  George  Thompson,  the  English 


46  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Abolitionist,    spoke,  and  where  several  slaveholders 
from  the  South  were  present.     Mr.  Alcott  writes  : 

"Mr.  Thompson  was  eloquent  and  impassioned,  as 
usual ;  hut  in  a  singular  compound  of  imagery  "brought 
forth  some  very  clear  and  true  points  to  the  eye  of  the 
audience.  The  slaveholders  seemed  somewhat  astounded 
by  this  strange  display  of  sense,  principle,  wit,  satire, 
humor,  pathos,  practical  and  theoretic  wisdom  thus  show 
ered  upon  them.  Before  he  had  concluded  his  philippic 
(or  by  what  name  it  shall  be  called),  they  deliberately 
rose  and  left  the  room.  After  the  meeting  they  were 
found  standing  at  the  passage,  to  get  a  nearer  glance  at 
Mr.  Thompson  as  he  passed,  —  perhaps  to  intimidate  him 
and  others.  I  took  my  stand  near  the  door  to  watch  their 
movements.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Thompson's  carnage  had 
come  to  another  passage-way,  and  he  was  driven  off,  leav 
ing  these  disaffected  men  to  go  home  without  causing 
disturbance.  Before  they  left  the  door,  however,  one  of 
them  said  to  the  bystanders  :  '  We  will  give  five  hundred 
dollars  for  him  in  any  one  of  the  slaveholdiug  States.' 
I  said,  '  And  what  would  you  do  with  him  1 '  '  Do  with 
him  1 '  said  he,  with  a  look  of  mingled  malignity  and 
scorn,  uttering  at  the  same  time  an  oath,  '  we  would 
hang  him  ! '  '  Yes,'  said  another, '  if  we  had  him  at  Vicks- 
burg,  we  would  bring  Lynch 's  law  to  bear  upon  him  at 
once.'  And  they  departed." 

The  two  Transcendentalists  were  then  Emancipa 
tionists  also,  and  they  bore  their  testimony  publicly  in 
after  years.  What  were  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Alcott 
in  1835  on  "  the  character  and  life  of  Christ/'  which 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  47 

he  discussed  with  Mr.  Emerson,  may  be  seen  in  this 
autobiographical  passage  from  the  Diary,  dated  Sun 
day,  Sept,  27,  1835:- 

"  In  1833  I  was  a  disciple  of  Experience,  trying  to  bring 
my  theories  within  the  Baconian  method  of  Induction, 
and  took  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle   as  the   exponent 
of  humanity,   while  my  heart  was  even  then  lingering 
around  the  theories  of  Plato,  without  being  conscious  of 
it.     A  follower  of  Aristotle  was  I  in  theory,  yet  a  true 
Platonist  in  practice.     Christianity  had  not  found  its  philo 
sophical  interpretation  at  that  time  in  my  heart ;  its  spirit 
was   striving  for  forms   agreeable  to  the   understanding. 
The  heart's  problems  were  seeking  solution  from  the  skill 
of  the  head.     I  was  looking  outward  for  the  origin  of  the 
human  powers,  making  more  of  phenomena  than  I  ought ; 
studying  the  concrete,  without  a  sense  of  the  grounds  on 
which  this  was  dependent  for  its  form  and  continuance. 
It  was  Coleridge  that  lifted  me  out  of  this  difficulty.     The 
perusal  of  the  '  Aids  to  Reflection,'  the  '  Friend,'  and  the 
*  Biographia  Literaria  '  at  this  time  gave  my  mind  a  turn 
toward  the  spiritual.     I  was  led  deeper  to  seek  the  grounds 
even  of  experience,  and  found   the  elements   of  human 
consciousness  not  in  the  impressions  of  external  nature, 
but  in  the  spontaneous  life  of  Spirit  itself,  independent  of 
experience  in  space  and  time.     Thus  was  I  relieved  from 
the  philosophy  of  sense.     Since  that  time  I  have  been 
steadily  pursuing  the  light  thus  let  in  upon  me,  and  striv 
ing  to  apprehend,  represent,  and  embody  it,  not   only  in 
theory  but  in   practice.     The  lights   of  Aristotle,  Plato, 
Bacon,  bright  and  glorious  as  they  are,  have  all  been  lost 
in  the  transparent  radiance  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  who  is 


48  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

the  exponent  of  human  nature,  and  whose  theory  of  life 
and  being  is  a  sublime  synthesis  of  Infinite  and  Absolute. 
The  analysis  of  this  sublime  theory  is  a  work  to  which  I 
devote  myself;  Christ  in  act,  word,  spirit,  I  seek  to  know." 

It  was  out  of  this  frame  of  mind  that  Mr.  Alcott's 
"  Conversations  on  the  Gospels  "  grew,  —  the  book 
which  was  so  brutally  attacked  by  the  Boston  news 
papers  when  it  appeared  two  years  later,  and  which 
Mr.  Emerson  so  generously  defended.  Meantime  the 
two  friends  were  drawing  still  closer  together,  each, 
giving  up,  perhaps,  something  of  his  own  opinion  in 
deference  to  the  other.  Thus  in  1835  Mr.  Alcott  went 
to  spend  his  thirty-sixth  birthday  with  Emerson  at 
Concord,  returning  Dec.  1,  1835.  The  Diary,  under 
date  of  December  2,  says :  — 

"  Last  evening  I  returned,  having  had  a  very  pleasant 
time  with  him  and  his  friends.  I  shall  seek  his  face  and 
favor  as  a  precious  delight  in  life.  While  at  Concord  I 
saw  Rev.  Mr.  Hedge  also  j  with  him  and  Mr.  Emerson 
I  had  some  very  interesting  conversation.  These  men  are 
the  most  earnest  spiritualists  of  the  time.  I  found  much 
in  their  ideas  and  purposes  of  like  character  with  my  own. 
Time  shall  unfold  what  we  may  do  for  the  good  of  hu 
manity.  I  was  pleased  to  find  so  ready  and  sincere  appre 
hension  of  some  of  my  favorite  theories  from  persons 
whom  I  could  respect,  and  who  were  without  guile ;  per 
sons  whose  culture  places  them  on  the  mount  of  clear 
vision,  and  who  know  what  they  see.  Eev.  Mr.  Goodwin, 
of  Concord,  and  Dr.  Eipley  spoke  encouragingly  to  me 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  49 

This  was  the  spring-time  of  Transcendentalism, 
before  it  had  aroused  enemies,  and  united  itself  with 
social,  political,  and  religious  movements  which  ex 
cited  the  most  violent  hostility  and  scorn.  The 
mild  weather  of  spring  soon  turned  to  fierce  storms 
and  cold  east-winds,  under  which  the  apostles  of  the 
Newness  shivered  and  struggled  for  years.  Poverty, 
neglect,  contempt,  misrepresentation,  were  their  lot ; 
but  they  had  a  good  cause  and  good  courage.  Emer 
son  in  particular  stood  up  among  them  like  a  cham 
pion,  and  received  on  his  sunny  shield  the  blows 
aimed  at  others  as  well  as  at  himself.  When  the 
"Daily  Advertiser,"  in  March,  1837,  attacked  Mr. 
Alcott's  book  of  "  Conversations  on  the  Gospels,"  and 
the  school  in  which  he  was  holding  such  talks  with 
children,  Mr.  Emerson  wrote  in  defence  of  his  friend, 
and  to  Mr.  Alcott  wrote  thus  :  — 

"  I  hate  to  have  all  the  little  dogs  barking  at  you,  for 
you  have  something  better  to  do  than  to  attend  to  them  ; 
but  every  beast  must  do  after  its  kind,  and  why  not 
these  ]  And  you  will  hold  by  yourself,  and  presently  for 
get  them.  Whatever  you  do  at  school,  pray  let  not  the 
pen  halt,  for  that  must  be  your  last  and  longest  lever  to 
lift  the  world  withal.  But  you  will  bide  your  time,  and, 
with  views  so  large  and  secular,  can  better  afford  to  wait 
than  other  men.  I  never  regretted  more  than  in  this  case 
my  own  helplessness  in  all  practical  contingencies.  For 
a  knowing  and  efficient  friend  can  do  a  man  with  a  mob 
a  better  service  than  he  himself.  But  I  was  created  a 
seeing  eye,  and  not  a  useful  band." 

4 


50  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

In  copying  this  letter  into  his  Diary,  Mr.  Alcott, 
in  April,  1837,  makes  this  comment:  — 

"It  is  much1  to  have  the  vision  of  the  seeing  eye.  'Did 
most  men  possess  this,  the  useful  hand  would  he  empow 
ered  with  new  dexterity  also.  Emerson  sees  me,  knows 
me,  and,  more  than  all  others,  helps  me,  —  not  hy  noisy 
praise,  not  by  low  appeals  to  interest  and  passion,  but  by 
turning  the  eye  of  others  to  my  stand  in  reason  and  the 
nature  of  things.  Only  men  of  like  vision  can  apprehend 
and  counsel  each  other.  A  man  whose  purpose  and  act 
demand  but  a  day  or  an  hour  for  their  completion  can  do 
little  by  way  of  advising  him  whose  purposes  require 
years  for  their  fulfilment.  Only  Emerson,  of  this  age, 
knows  me,  of  all  that  I  have  found.  Well,  every  one  does 
not  find  one  man,  one  very  man,  through  and  through. 
Many  are  they  who  live  and  die  alone,  known  only  to 
their  survivors  of  an  after  century." 

So  said  Alcott  in  1837 ;  and  four  years  after,  Car- 
lyle,  on  receiving  from  Emerson  the  first  volume  of 
"  Essays,"  said  almost  the  same  thing,  and  with  quite 
the  same  feeling  :  — 

"  The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  desert !  It  is  once 
more  the  voice  of  a  man.  Ah  me !  I  feel  as  if  in  the 
wide  world  there  were  still  but  this  one  voice  that  re 
sponded  intelligently  to  my  own ;  as  if  the  rest  were  all 
hearsays,  melodious  or  un melodious  echoes  ;  as  if  this 
alone  were  true  and  alive." 

This  same  Diary  of  1837  contains  a  prophetic  and 
critical  passage  concerning  Emerson,  which  may  be 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  51 


quoted  as  the  first  prediction  of  the  exact  place 
our  poet-philosopher  was  to  take  among  the  leaders 
of  thought.  In  January,  forty-seven  years  ago,  after 
"  Xature  "  had  been  published,  but  when  few  had 
read  it,  Mr.  Alcott  thus  delineated,  with  sure  eye  and 
hand,  the  genius  and  fame  of  its  author  :  — 

"  Emerson  the  lecturer  always  kindles  a  sublime  senti 
ment  when,  in  those  deep  and  oracular  undertones  which 
he  knows  well  when  and  how  to  use,  he  speaks  of  the 
divine  entities  of  all  being.  A  solemn,  supernatural  awe 
creeps  over  one  as  the  severe  pathos  of  his  manner  and 
the  unaffected  earnestness  of  his  bearing  come  upon  the 
senses.  At  long  intervals  of  remark  —  now  bordering 
almost  on  coarseness,  from  the  terms  that  he  weaves  into 
his  diction,  and  the  picture  of  vulgar  life  that  he  draws 
with  a  Shakspearian  boldness  of  delineation  respecting 
farmers,  tradesmen,  beasts,  vermin,  the  rabid  mob,  the 
courtesan,  the  under  as  well  as  the  upper  vulgar,  and 
now  sliding  into  all  that  is  beautiful,  refined,  elegant,  in 
thought,  speech,  action,  and  vocation  —  he  bursts  upon  the 
hearer  in  strains  of  thought  and  charms  of  diction  that 
overpower  the  soul  by  their  bewildering,  lofty  grandeur. 
The  burlesque,  in  a  twinkling,  is  transformed  into  the 
serious  ;  the  bold  and  sketchy  outline  becomes  a  deep, 
sublime  idea.  His  ;s  the  poet's,  not  the  logician's  power  ; 
he  states,  pictures,  sketches,  but  does  not  reason.  His 
appeal  is  through  the  imagination  and  the  senses  to  the 
mind.  He  leaves  things  in  the  place  where  Xature  left 
them,  never  deranging  that  order  for  a  special,  logical 
analysis.  Xature  shines  serenely  through  the  calm  depths 
of  his  soul,  and  leaves  upon  its  unruffled  surface  the 


52  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

images  of  all  her  works.  .  .  .  The  day  shall  come  when 
this  man's  genius  shall  shine  beyond  the  circle  of  his 
own  city  and  nation.  It  shall  flash  across  the  wide 
water,  and  receive  the  homage  of  other  peoples.  Emer 
son  is  destined  to  be  the  high  literary  name  of  this 
age.  Other  men  we  have  who  ply  small  trade  in  the 
nooks  and  corners  of  this  wide  sea,  and  whose  wares  are 
peddled  at  this  place  and  that;  but  this  man's  genius 
is  cosmopolitan, -and  shall  be  in  demand  wherever  man  has 
risen  above  the  mere  mechanics  and  utilities  of  life." 

Where  shall  we  find,  after  all  these  years,  a  closer 
criticism  of  Emerson's  eloquence  than  this,  to  which 
the  post-mortem  remarks  of  Arnold  and  Morley  are 
like  descriptions  of  the  living  soul  drawn  in  the  dis 
secting-room  ?  Emerson  himself,  however,  in  a  let 
ter  to  Mr.  Alcott  of  May,  1837,  opened  the  secret  of 
his  own  success  with  the  world  as  a  writer,  while  at 
the  same  time  giving  high  and  wise  advice  to  his 
friend.  He  wrote  thus  :  — 

"  In  the  few  moments'  broken  conversation  I  had  with 
you  a  fortnight  ago,  it  seems  to  me  you  did  not  acquiesce 
at  all  in  what  is  always  my  golden  view  for  you,  as  for  all 
men  to  whom  God  has  given  '  the  vision  and  the  faculty 
divine ; '  namely,  that  one  day  you  would  leave  the  imprac 
ticable  world  to  wag  its  own  way,  and  sit  apart  and  write 
your  oracles  for  its  behoof !  Write  !  let  them  hear  or  let 
them  forbear ;  the  written  word  abides  until,  slowly  and 
unexpectedly  and  in  widely  sundered  places,  it  has  cre 
ated  its  own  church.  And  my  love  and  confidence  in  that 
silent  Muse  is  such,  that,  in  circumstances  in  which  I  can 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  53 

easily  conceive  myself  placed,  I  should  prefer  some  manual 
or  quite  mechanical  labor  as  a  means  of  living,  that  should 
leave  me  a  few  sacred  hours  in  the  twenty-four,  to  any 
attempt  to  realize  my  idea  in  any  existing  forms  called  in 
tellectual  or  spiritual,  where,  by  defying  every  settled  usage 
in  society,  I  should  be  sure  to  sour  my  own  temper." 

In  commenting  on  this  advice  (which  was  sound), 
and  after  a  visit  to  Emerson  in  Concord,  Mr.  Alcott 
makes  some  striking  remarks,  which  show,  however, 
that  even  he  did  not  then  fully  appreciate  the  breadth 
and  variety  of  his  friend's  powers.  Mr.  Alcott  wrote 
thus :  — 

"  Emerson,  true  to  his  genius,  favors  written  works.  He 
holds  men  and  things  at  a  distance  ;  pleases  himself  with 
using  them  for  his  own  benefit,  and  as  means  of  gathering 
material  for  his  own  work.  He  does  not  believe  in  the 
actual ;  his  sympathies  are  all  intellectual.  He  persuades 
me  to  leave  the  actual,  devote  myself  to  the  speculative, 
and  embody  my  thought  in  written  works.  Emerson  ideal 
izes  all  things.  This  idealized  picture  is  the  true  and  real 
one  to  him,  —  all  else  is  nought.  Even  persons  are  thus 
idealized,  and  his  interest  in  them  and  their  influence  over 
him  exist  no  longer  than  this  conformity  appears  in  his 
imagination.  Beauty,  beauty,  —  this  it  is  that  charms 
him.  But  beauty  has  pure  and  delicate  tastes ;  and  hence 
all  that  mars  or  displeases  this  sense,  with  however  much 
of  truth  or  of  goodness  it  may  be  associated,  is  of  no  in 
terest  to  the  mind.  Emerson  seeks  the  beauty  of  truth. 
With  him  all  men  and  things  have  a  beauty ;  but  this  is 
the  result  of  his  point  of  vision,  and  often  falls  wide  of 


54  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

the  actual  truth.  To  give  pleasure,  more  than  to  impart 
truth,  is  his  mission  ;  what  is  beautiful  in  man,  nature,  or 
art,  this  he  apprehends,  and  with  the  poet's  power  sets 
forth.  His  genius  is  high  and  commanding ;  he  will  do 
honor  to  his  age.  As  a  man,  however,  this  visit  lias  some 
what  modified  my  former  notions  of  him.  He  seems  not 
to  be  fully  in  earnest.  Fame  stands  before  him  as  a  daz 
zling  award,  and  he  holds  himself  somewhat  too  proudly, 
nor  seeks  the  humble  and  sincere  regard  of  his  race.  His 
life  has  been  one  of  opportunity,  and  he  has  sought  to  real 
ize  in  it  more  of  the  accomplished  scholar  than  of  the  per 
fect  man  ;  a  great  intellect  refined  by  elegant  study,  rather 
than  a  divine  life  radiant  with  the  beauty  of  truth  and 
holiness." 

In  this  criticism  the  insight  is  keen,  but  not  always 
just.  As  Chaucer  says,  "there  are  more  stars  in  the 
sky  than  a  pair ;"  and  it  is  not  by  this  balanced  an 
tithesis  that  great  men  are  to  be  judged.  There  was 
what  astronomers  call  a  "nutation"  in  Emerson's 
genius ;  he  inclined  now  this  way  and  now  that,  but 
the  circle  of  his  orbit  brought  him  always  round  to 
his  place.  He  bowed  to  beauty  for  what  it  claimed, 
but  not  at  the  expense  of  justice  and  the  upright. 

JSTot"  long  after  the  visit  to  Concord  which  suggested 
this  criticism  on  Emerson,  Mr.  Alcott  heard  his  friend 
give  a  lecture  in  Boston  on  "Ethics,"  bringing  out 
his  view  of  conscience  and  the  moral  laws  as  illus 
trated  by  the  example  of  just  men.  Upon  this  lecture, 
considering  both  its  thought  and  its  style,  the  Diary 
thus  passes  judgment  (Feb.  15, 1837)  :  — 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  55 

"  Emerson  is  always  impressive  when  he  comes  to  the 
elucidation  of  great  and  eminent  natures.  In  discoursing 
on  these,  the  awful  front  of  truth,  the  severe  grandeur  of 
beauty,  the  commanding  presence  of  justice,  look  forth 
upon  the  hearer  in  their  divine  majesty  of  outline.  These 
are  realities,  and  have  their  root  and  life  in  the  Spirit. 
They  are  great  natures,  above  change,  above  harm.  They 
know  of  no  peril,  but  dwell  serenely  in  the  bosom  of  Spirit, 
of  which  man  and  nature  are  the  visible  types. 

"  But  this  man's  genius  has  little  in  common  with  the 
spirit  and  temper  of  this  age.  It  is  the  herald  of  a  future 
time,  when  nature  and  life  shall  have  other  significance 
than  that  which  they  now  wear ;  when  all  things  shall  be 
viewed  through  a  nobler  organ  than  the  external  sense, 
and  subserve  other  purposes  than  mere  corporeal  use.  The 
old  enthusiasm  for  honest  and  simple  bravery,  the  love 
of  all  that  is  noble  and  fair,  —  these  elements  reappear 
in  our  modern.  Observe  his  style  :  it  is  full  of  genuine 
phrases  from  the  Saxon.  He  loves  the  simple,  the  natu 
ral  ;  the  thing  is  sharply  presented,  yet  graced  by  beauty 
and  elegance,  both  of  conception  and  diction.  Our  lan 
guage  is  a  fit  organ  as  used  by  him.  Its  sensualism,  the 
filth  and  dust  that  had  bedaubed  it  as  it  was  used  by 
coarse  natures  during  the  last  generations,  until  all  its 
idioms  and  commonplaces  tell  the  story  of  our  declension 
from  honor  and  purity,  are  all  washed  away,  and  we  hear 
clean  and  classic  English  once  more  from  Northern  lips. 
Shakspeare,  Sidney,  Browne,  speak  again  to  us,  and  we 
recognize  our  affinity  of  speech  with  the  fathers  of  English 
diction.  Poesy  and  philosophy  lisp  once  more  their  native 
accents,  uniting  beauty  with  grandeur,  grace  with  force, 
and  asserting  the  original  sweetness  and  richness  of  our 


56  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

own  tongue.  Emerson  is  the  only  instance  of  original  style 
among  Americans.  Who  writes  like  him  1  Who  can  1  None 
of  his  imitators,  surely." 

So  much  for  the  style,  which  is,  at  least,  part  of 
the  man.  In  1839,  Mr.  Alcott  has  a  passage  on  his 
friend's  characteristics  which  still  better  expresses 
them.  He  writes  :  — 

"  I  propose  spending  a  few  days  in  Concord  with  Em 
erson.  We  have  much,  I  fancy,  to  say  on  the  present 
aspects  and  tendencies  of  the  times.  A  day  of  controversy 
is  coming  over  our  heads.  Renovating  influences  are  at 
work  in  the  very  heart  of  society ;  old  forms  are  soon  to 
be  cast  off.  The  soul  is  shedding  its  slough,  and  renew 
ing  itself.  The  timid,  the  besotted,  are  looking  on  with 
fear.  Views  with  which  our  names  are  associated  are  to 
be  assailed  as  the  prolific  cause  of  this  overturn  of  things. 
We  are  to  be  made  the  butt  of  sectarian  scandal.  Perse 
cutions  fierce  and  unrelenting  are  to  be  waged  against  us. 
Our  tempers  are  to  be  tried.  I  shall  like  to  learn  the  mood 
of  this  my  brother  as  he  looks  out  from  the  seclusion  of 
his  rural  retreat. 

"  Brother  !  That  is  a  kindling  name.  I  feel  the  senti 
ment  of  kindred  quicken  within  me  as  I  write  it.  He  is 
a  brother  of  mine,  and  an  only  one.  All  other  men  seem 
strange  to  me  when  I  think  of  him  ;  for  no  other  knows 
me  so  well,  and  I  value  none  so  dearly.  I  may  confide  in 
him.  Bravest  among  my  contemporaries,  he  walks  the  earth 
magnanimously ;  and  I  behold  his  front,  and  despair  not 
of  men.  A  spirit  like  his  shall  not  be  cowed.  An  insight 
like  his  shall  gain  its  meed  of  honor.  My  brother,  we 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  57 

shall  do  and  dare.  God  is  on  our  side.  We  believe  in  the 
Eeal,  and  shall  come  off  victorious  in  our  warfare  against 
the  Seeming.'* 

The  passages  drawn  from  the  Diary  of  1837  have 
been  chiefly  taken  from  Mr.  Alcott's  comments,  week 
by  week,  on  a  course  of  twelve  lectures  which  Emerson 
gave  in  the  winter  of  1836-1837,  in  Boston,  on  what 
he  called  "  The  Methods  and  Philosophy  of  History," 
but  which  Mr.  Alcott,  who  heard  them  all,  said  re 
lated  to  "  the  omniscience,  of  spirit."  The  Diary  for 
February,  1837,  furnishes  these  remarks  :  — 

"Mr.  Emerson  lectured  this  week  on  politics,  —  sound 
doctrines,  I  thought,  in  fit  phrase.  His  audience  enlarges 
from  week  to  week.  I  am  glad  the  people  come  to  hear 
these  discourses,  which  serve  to  arouse  the  noble  facul 
ties  and  adapt  the  senses  to  something  supersensual  and 
permanent.  But  they  will  not  understand  aright.  Bet 
ter  attain  but  glimpses,  however,  than  remain  in  sluggish 
obscurity,  sense-ridden  and  sense-beguiled.  They  seem  to 
listen  to  him  as  marvelling  children  to  a  riddle-telling 
elder,  anxious  to  fathom  the  puzzle  that  drops  from  his 
lips  and  pleasing  their  dull  wits  with  his  mystic  lore. 
Xeed  enough  is  there  of  some  statement  of  the  divine 
order  and  beauty  of  things,  and  especially  in  this  city. 
All  minds  seem  to  be  enveloped  in  the  bewildering  haze 
of  sensualism.  Ideas  are  not ;  spirit  is  not ;  brains  and 
hands  move  all  things.  The  world  is  a  busy  workshop, 
exchange,  or  inn ;  and  whosoever  plies  most  dexterously 
the  organs  that  he  hath,  whether  of  brain,  hand,  or  belly, 
doth  manfully  his  duty,  and  is  an  accepted  member  of  the 


58  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

body  social.  Channing's  ethics  touch  not  these  functions 
of  the  social  order ;  Brownson's  reasonings  stay  not  the 
rabid  instincts  of  the  populace ;  nor  Graham's  invectives 
stop  the  career  of  intemperance  and  debauchery,  in  high 
places  and  low.  Emerson  can  scarce  do  more  than  please  ; 
for  vain  is  the  hope  of  undermining  the  foundations  of 
men's  belief  in  shows  and  shapes,  while  the  philosophy 
of  the  speaker  is  itself  deemed  a  beautiful  show,  and  him 
self  a  skilful  puzzler  of  men's  brains.  Not  on  those  who 
hear  these  lectures  will  the  principles  which  they  announce 
take  abiding  effect.  Another  day,  another  age,  are  to  es 
pouse  and  live  in  harmony  and  love  with  them.  The 
divine  truths  which  these  utter  will  be  sown  in  the  soil 
of  young  and  fertile  spirits  ;  and  these  shall  gather  the 
harvest  in  the  old  age  of  the  seedsman  and  the  sower. 
He  shall  reap  in  due  time  of  the  fruits  of  his  toil,  and 
the  thankful  laboriousness  of  self-chosen  disciples  shall 
minister  to  his  decline." 

The  state  of  things  here  described,  which  will  be 
recognized  by  those  who  remember  the  Presidency  of 
Van  Buren  in  New  England,  led  Mr.  Alcott,  as  well 
as  Emerson,  Garrison,  and  other  reformers,  to  attempt 
measures  and  form  plans  to  change  what  they  found 
so  wrong.  In  the  prosecution  of  his  plans  for  a  sim 
pler  mode  of  social  life,  a  better  education,  and  a  truer 
worship,  Mr.  Alcott,  in  the  year  1842,  felt  strongly 
the  importance  of  visiting  England  and  entering  into 
acquaintance  with  the  men  and  women  there  who 
seemed  to  be  cherishing  the  same  purposes  with  him 
self.  He  had  for  years  corresponded  with  some  of 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  59 

these  persons,  particularly  with  Mr.  Heraud,  a  lit 
erary  man,  and  Mr.  Greaves,  a  disciple  and  friend 
of  Pestalozzi.  Mr.  Emerson  entered  cordially  into 
Mr.  Alcott's  plans  in  this  respect,  and  was  the  prin 
cipal  person  who  contributed  to  the  fund  which  was 
raised  for  this  Transcendental  embassy.  Writing  to 
Mr.  Alcott  on  the  12th  of  February,  1842,  Mr.  Emer 
son  said  :  — 

"  I  ain  far  from  thinking  that  the  project  should  be 
dropped.  If  it  shall  continue  to  seem  profitable  and  de 
sirable  to  you,  as  it  has  appeared,  it  will  seem  so  to  me. 
I  think  you  need  the  diversion  and  the  stimulus  which  so 
total  a  change  in  your  habits  and  company  will  afford,  with 
out  considering  what  farther  contingencies  may  accrue." 

Accordingly,  on  the  8th  of  May,  Mr.  Alcott  sailed 
for  England,  and  there  spent  several  months,  return 
ing  Oct.  20,  1842,  accompanied  by  two  English 
Socialists,  Charles  Lane  and  Henry  C.  Wright,  who 
afterwards  joined  in  his  experiment  of  an  ideal 
community  at  Eruitlands,  in  the  town  of  Harvard. 
Before  his  return,  Emerson,  who  was  then  editing 
"The  Dial,"  printed  in  that  magazine  (October,  1842) 
an  excellent  account  of  Mr.  Alcott's  mission  to  Eng 
land  and  the  companionship  which  he  found  there : 

ENGLISH  REFORMERS. 

Whilst  Mr.  Sparks  visits  England  to  explore  the  manu 
scripts  of  the  Colonial  Office,  and  Dr.  Waagen  on  a  mission 
of  art,  Mr.  Alcott,  whose  genius  and  efforts  in  the  great 


60  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

art  of  education  have  been  more  appreciated  in  England 
than  in  America,  has  now  been  spending  some  months  in 
that  country,  with  the  aim  to  confer  with  the  most  emi 
nent  educators  and  philanthropists,  in  the  hope  to  exchange 
intelligence,  and  import  into  this  country  whatever  hints 
have  been  struck  out  there  on  the  subject  of  literature  and 
the  First  Philosophy.  The  design  was  worthy,  and  its  first 
results  have  already  reached  us.  Mr.  Alcott  was  received 
with  great  cordiality  of  joy  and  respect  by  his  friends  in 
London,  and  presently  found  himself  domesticated  at  an 
institution  managed  after  his  own  methods  and  called  after 
his  name, — the  School  of  Mr.  "Wright,  at  Alcott  House, 
Ham,  Surrey.  He  was  introduced  to  many  men  of  literary 
and  philanthropic  distinction,  and  his  arrival  was  made 
the  occasion  of  meetings  for  public  conversation  on  the 
great  ethical  questions  of  the  day. 

Mr.  Alcott's  mission,  besides  making  us  acquainted  with 
the  character  and  labors  of  some  excellent  persons,  has 
loaded  our  table  with  a  pile  of  English  books,  pamphlets, 
periodicals,  flying  prospectuses,  and  advertisements  pro 
ceeding  from  a  class  very  little  known  in  this  country  and 
on  many  accounts  important,  —  the  party,  namely,  who 
represent  Social  Reform.  Here  are  Educational  Circulars 
and  Communist  Apostles,  Alists,  Plans  for  Syncretic  Asso 
ciations  and  Pestalozzian  Societies,  Self-supporting  Insti 
tutions,  Experimental  Normal  Schools,  Hydropathic  and 
Philosophical  Associations,  Health  Unions  and  Phalanste- 
rian  Gazettes,  Paradises  within  the  reach  of  all  men,  Appeals 
of  Man  to  Woman,  and  Necessities  of  Internal  Marriage, 
illustrated  by  Phrenological  Diagrams.  These  papers  have 
many  sins  to  answer  for.  There  is  an  abundance  of  super- 
ficialness,  of  pedantry,  of  inflation,  and  want  of  thought. 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  61 

It  seems  as  if  these  sanguine  schemers  rushed  to  the  press 
with  every  notion  that  danced  before  their  brain,  and 
clothed  it  in  the  most  clumsily  compound  and  terminated 
words,  for  want  of  time  to  find  the  right  one.  But  although 
these  men  use  a  swollen  and  vicious  diction,  yet  they  write 
to  ends  which  raise  them  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  ordi 
nary  criticism.  They  speak  to  the  conscience,  and  have 
that  superiority  over  the  crowd  of  their  contemporaries 
which  belongs  to  men  who  entertain  a  good  hope.  More 
over,  these  pamphlets  may  well  engage  the  attention  of  the 
politician,  as  straws  of  no  mean  significance  to  show  the 
tendencies  of  the  time. 

Mr.  Alcott  found  little  in  the  condition  or  the  popu 
lation  of  England  in  1842  to  encourage  his  labors 
there  ;  but  he  did  find  a  few  enthusiastic  persons  who 
partook  of  his  own  philanthropic  idealism,  and  were 
eager  to  join  his  private  efforts  at  social  reform  in 
New  England.  Some  of  his  observations  on  per 
sons  and  events  in  the  mother  country  may  here  be 
cited  :  — 


"July  18,  1842.  Returned  to  Alcott  House. 
Had  much  conversation  with  Mr.  "\Vright  on  our  union 
in  Xew  England.  He  inclines  to  return  with  me.  Even 
ing,  —  TVe  walked  to  \Vandswortli  (six  miles),  and  had 
a  lively  conversation  there  on  education,  and  engaged  to 
resume  our  conversation  there  on  Tuesday  evening  next. 

'•'  July  20.  Dined  with  "\V.  J.  Fox,  and  met  Harwood, 
'Dr.  Elliotson,  Mr.  Lalor,  and  others.  The  conversation 
was  prolonged  till  late  in  the  evening,  and  ran  on  various 
topics,  —  Pythagorean  diet,  taxes,  government,  magnetism, 


62  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

poetry,  'The  Dial/  Emerson,  etc.  It  gave  me  little  satis 
faction.  There  was  much  argument,  protestation,  and  but 
little  from  the  heart.  Our  Club  in  its  dotage,  even,  was 
wiser  far.  I  seemed  to  have  fallen  on  Dr.  Channing  and 
the  Unitarian  Association. 

"July  21.  Called  on  J.  M.  Morgan,  and  saw  his  paint 
ing  of  a  design  for  his  '  Self -Supporting  Institution,'  at 
his  rooms  in  Holborn.  He  discoursed  long,  and  with 
great  good-will,  on  his  plans  for  relieving  the  needy  and 
distressed;  but  relies  on  the  Church  for  support,  and  seeks 
to  redeem  his  own  name  from  disgrace  by  denying  his 
former  intimacy  with  Mr.  Owen.  He  is  another  sad  in 
stance  of  apostasy  from  the  principles  so  livingiy  affirmed 
by  Mr.  Greaves.  I  recognized  but  little  of  the  wide 
humanity  that  pervades  his  '  Hampden  in  the  Nine 
teenth  Century.'  Morgan,  Biber,  Heraud,  Oldham,  Smith, 
Marstou,  —  these  are  all  fallen ;  and  there  remain  but 
Lane  and  Wright  in  whom  the  divine  fire  still  burns.  I 
saw  George  Thompson  again,  and  heard  O'Connell,  Joseph 
Hume,  M.  P.,  Joseph  Sturge,  and  Sydney  Smith,  at  the 
Anti-Corn-Law  Conference  at  the  King's  Arms,  West 
minster.  The  meeting  reminded  me  of  our  Abolition  and 
Non-resistance  conventions ;  and  the  speakers,  of  Garrison, 
Wright,  and  Phillips.  Fierce  denunciation,  discontent, 
sedition,  desperation,  rang  throughout  the  hall ;  but  neither 
people,  delegates,  nor  leaders  seemed  at  all  aware  of  the 
remedy  for  the  social  evils  under  which  they  are  now 
writhing  in  sorrow,  disappointment,  hunger.  It  is  not 
bread  nor  wages  (and  so  I  told  Thompson),  but  property, 
gain,  and  the  lust  of  gain,  —  these  are  the  parents  of  the 
ills  they  sutler.  But  Thompson  is  too  busy  to  hear,  and 
the  people  too  hungry  to  believe. 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  63 

"  Had  a  short  interview  with  Robert  Owen  at  his  rooms 
in  Pall  Mall.  He  read  me  a  letter  which  he  had  just 
written,  addressed  to  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  proposing  his  rem 
edy  for  the  distress  of  the  nation ;  but  he  seemed  but 
little  wiser  than  the  Premier,  Parliament,  and  Reformers. 
Property,  property  still,  and  the  people  still  left  enslaved 
to  their  lusts  and  passions.  He  asked  me  to  breakfast 
with  him  at  my  convenience,  which  I  promised  to  do,  but 
scarce  know  why.  'T  is  a  base  errand,  this  of  eating  and 
drinking  with  lions,  and  I  am  getting  heartily  ashamed 
of  it.  Surely,  I  am  made  for  better  things.  Evening.  — 
At  Heraud's.  Barham,  Marston,  Wright,  and  others,  were 
there.  We  discussed  printing  a  new  journal,  to  be  sup 
ported  by  contributions  from  the  Old  World  and  the  Xew, 
and  issued  quarterly.  A  good  deal  was  said.  Heraud 
and  Barham  deem  Carlyle's  interest  essential  to  its  success 
with  the  public.  I  put  the  work  on  its  own  merits,  quite 
independent  of  names,  and  Wright  agrees  with  me.  I 
gave  them  the  theory  of  my  new  journal :  the  hopes  it 
must  meet,  the  audience  it  must  create,  the  contributors 
it  must  secure.  I  proposed  that  it  should  answer  to  some 
thing  like  this  :  '  The  Janus  :  An  Ephemeris  of  the  Per 
manent  in  Religion,  Philosophy,  Science,  Art,  and  Letters.' 
My  idea  was  obviously  too  broad  and  daring  for  them,  and 
so  we  separated. 

"  Two  letters  from  my  wife  at  the  close  of  this  storm- 
ful  day.  I  read  them,  and  found  peace  in  the  gardens  of 
Concordia." 

Kearly  twenty  years  later  Mr.  Alcott's  project 
of  an  international  magazine  was  carried  out  in 
some  degree  by  the  establishment  of  the  "Atlantic 


64  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Monthly."  With  Carlyle,  to  whom  Emerson  sent 
him  with  warm  commendatory  letters,  Mr.  Alcott 
had  no  good  fortune  ;  the  two  friends  of  Emerson 
proved  antipathetic  to  each  other.  In  a  letter  to 

Mrs.  Alcott,  her  husband  wrote :  — 

"JUNE  25,  1842. 

"  I  rode  to  Chelsea  and  passed  an  hour  with  Carlyle. 
Ah,  me  !  Saul  amongst  the  prophets  !  It  must  have  been 
a  dark  hour  with  him.  He  seemed  impatient  of  inter 
ruption  ;  faithless,  quite,  in  all  social  reforms.  His  wit 
was  sombre,  severe,  hopeless ;  his  very  merriment  had 
madness  in  it ;  his  humor  was  tragic  even  to  tears.  There 
lay  smouldering  in  him  a  whole  French  Revolution,  a 
Cromwellian  rebellion ;  nor  could  the  rich  mellowness 
of  his  voice,  deepened  as  it  was  and  made  more  musical 
by  his  broad  Northern  accent,  hide  from  me  the  restless 
melancholy,  the  memory  feeding  on  hope,  the  decease  of 
all  prophecy  in  the  grave  of  history.  I  told  him  the  dead 
only  dealt  with  the  dead ;  that  the  living  breathed  only 
with  the  living.  The  man  is  sick  ;  he  needs  rest.  I  know 
his  ailment ;  I  know  its  cure.  Emerson  will  sadden  when 
you  tell  him  what  I  write ;  but  here  is  another  of  the 
thousand  confirmations  of  that  suicide  by  the  pen  in  which 
literature  abounds.  I  will  not  turn  on  my  heel  to  see 
another  man ;  and  the  women  are  tragic  all  (Mrs.  Carlyle, 
Mrs.  Fox,  etc.),  —  these  doleful  daughters  of  Britain,  they 

mourn  even  in  their  joys." 

"AUGUST  2. 

"  I  have  seen  Carlyle  again  ;  but  we  quarrelled  outright, 
and  I  shall  see  him  not  again.  Greatness  abides  not 
here ;  her  home  is  in  the  clouds,  save  when  she  descends 
on  the  meadows  or  treads  the  groves  of  Concord." 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  65 

Nevertheless,  Mr.  Alcott  did  call  once  more  on 
Carlyle,  but  he  was  not  at  home.  A  few  days  after 
he  wrote  this  letter  to  Mr.  Alcott :  — 

CHELSEA,  Sept.  22,  1842. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  very  sorry  to  have  been  out  the 
other  day  when  you  called  again.  I  suppose  it  is  my  last 
chance  of  seeing  you  in  England.  You  leave  me,  too,  as 
an  incorrigible  heretic  and  infidel,  which  verily  I  am  not, 
yet  must  be  content  to  seem  for  the  present !  Well,  I  will 
wish  you  a  right  pleasant  reunion  with  your  native  friends, 
with  those  whom  you  know  better  than  you  do  me.  To 
hear  that  your  scheme  of  life  prospers  to  the  utmost  pos 
sible  extent  will,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  be  always 
happy  news  to  me.  Though  not  precisely  my  church,  I 
do  reckon  it  a  branch  of  the  true  church,  very  worthy  to 
spread  and  root  itself  according  to  its  power  in  a  world  so 
overgrown  with  falsity  and  jungle  as  ours  is.  ...  I  was 
absent  in  Suffolk  when  your  invitation  to  the  Conference 
reached  me.  I  can  add  no  more  but  that  sad  word,  adieu  ! 
May  all  good  Powers  watch  over  you,  guide  you  well,  and 
ever  better  towards  your  true  aim.  I  remain  always, 
Yours  very  sincerely, 

T.  CARLYLE. 

Our  last  extract  shall  be  taken  from  the  brief 
Diary  for  1846,  when  Mr.  Alcott,  after  his  experiences 
in  England  and  at  Fruitlands,  was  again  established 
in  Concord,  at  the  Hillside  Cottage,  in  which  Haw 
thorne  succeeded  him,  and  which  has  since  been 
known  and  described  as  The  Wayside.  Looking  out 
from  this  "loophole  of  retreat"  in  January,  1846, 

6 


66  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

and  having  lately  read  Carlyle's  book  on  Cromwell, 
which  Mr.  Alcott  had  found  him  toiling  over  in  1842, 
the  Concord  mystic  thus  writes,  justly  and  propheti 
cally  :  — 

"  Carlyle's  new  hook  comes  opportunely.  This  nation 
seems  lost  to  every  sense  of  right ;  the  spark  of  freedom 
that  inflamed  the  breasts  of  our  fathers  is  extinct  in  their 
Republic.  In  the  midst  of  a  revolution  we  seem  not  to 
know  it,  nor  that  the  principles  for  which  Luther  and 
Cromwell  contended,  and  which  constitute  our  inheritance, 
are  trodden  under  foot  in  the  counsels  and  acts  of  Con 
gress.  The  Reformation  is  still  in  progress,  and  Provi 
dence  invites  us  to  carry  it  forward  and  give  it  permanency 
in  worth}7  institutions.  Freedom  in  Church,  in  State,  in 
the  Family,  in  our  bosoms  and  estates,  —  these  are  the  de 
mands  of  Protestantism  in  1846.  The  family  is  the  cradle 
of  the  Commonwealth ;  the  private  house  is  the  council- 
chamber  of  the  Republic.  Every  man  has  some  faint 
sentiment  of  this,  and  human  history  is  the  record  of 
struggles  for  his  own  freedom  or  subjection.  The  ascen 
dency  of  a  spiritual  philosophy  in  the  finer  and  better 
minds,  and  particularly  in  the  youth  of  our  day,  is  an 
omen  of  hope.  A  silent,  gradual,  and  yet  perceptible 
amendment  is  taking  place,  and  the  final  settlement  of  the 
new  is  near  and  sure.  The  old  order  is  crumbling  away  ; 
the  new  powers  with  which  modern  science  has  charged 
the  civilized  world  have  given  fresh  impulse  to  enterprise 
in  our  people,  —  opened  new  and  wider  fields  for  their 
extension.  Our  social  and  geographical  position  affords 
additional  incentives  and  opportunity  for  a  broader  display 
of  the  national  character.  The  Northern  genius  is  success- 


EMERSON  AND  ALCOTT.  67 

fully  competing  with  Nature  ;  and,  no  less  than  the  South 
ern  ambition,  is  adding  new  territories  to  the  already  over 
grown  Republic.  This  great  secular  interest,  thus  called 
into  vigorous  existence  and  furnished  with  new  facilities 
by  its  broader  field  of  action,  is  coming  in  conflict  with 
existing  social  and  political  institutions,  and  arraying  the 
extreme  sections  of  the  country  against  each  other.  The 
struggle  has  begun.  The  base  and  wricked  alliance  be 
tween  freedom  and  slavery  —  the  source  of  national  dis 
cord  —  must  issue  soon  in  the  dissolution  of  the  present 
political  confederacy.  .  .  . 

"  The  change  in  the  business  of  men  is  no  less  remark 
able  than  in  their  thinking ;  the  magnetic  and  steam 
couriers  match  the  intuitive  philosophy  and  religion. 
Man  is  constructing  organs  for  the  mind ;  the  dynamic 
forces  of  his  being  are  forging  facile  engines,  alike  of  pon 
derous  metal  and  the  subtilest  fluid.  Flame,  Lightning, 
Intuition,  Enthusiasm,  are  become  his  readiest  porters  and 
runners.  'Feed  me,'  cries  Body,  querulously,  'and  I'll 
feed  thee.'  *  Nay,'  quoth  the  Soul,  *  thou  canst  give  me 
no  bread ;  thou  canst  not  even  grow  bread  for  thyself. 
JT  is  of  my  good  pleasure  that  thou  art ;  by  me  are  formed 
all  thine  organs.  I  feed  thy  heart  with  Piety,  thy  mind 
with  Science,  thy  hand  with  Art ;  and  sustain  thee  in 
comfort  all  thy  life  long,  in  this  little  mansion  and  world 
to  which  I  am  a  party  in  making  it  for  thee.  But  a  world 
ling  and  hireling  art  thou,  ever  discontented  with  thy 
fodder  and  wages.' 

"  Noblest  of  benefactors  is  the  thinking  Soul ;  all  men, 
in  some  sort  and  time,  are  beggars,  and  receive  its  alms." 


68  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


III. 

EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN. 

BY  JULIAN   HAWTHORNE. 

IT  might  be  said,  both  that  the  time  has  passed, 
and  that  it  is  not  yet  come,  to  assign  Emerson  his 
place  among  the  thinkers  of  the  world ;  but  it  can 
never  be  out  of  place  to  remark  that  his  bent  and 
genius  were  profoundly  and  typically  American.  So 
far  as  his  thoughts  and  opinions  had  color,  it  was 
that  of  his  native  soil.  He  believed  in  our  great 
experiment ;  he  was  not  disheartened  by  our  mis 
takes  ;  he  had  faith  that  the  goodness  and  wisdom 
of  humanity  would,  in  the  long  run,  prove  more  than 
equal  to  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  any  possible 
man  ;  and  that  men  would,  at  last,  govern  themselves 
more  nobly  and  successfully  than  any  individual 
monarch  could  govern  them.  He  speaks,  indeed,  of 
Representative  Men  ;  but  he  was  no  hero-worshipper, 
like  Carlyle.  A  hero  was,  to  him,  not  so  much  a 
powerful  and  dominating  personality,  as  a  relatively 
impersonal  instrument  of  God  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  some  great  end.  It  would  follow  from 
this  that  humanity  is  the  greatest  hero  of  all ;  and 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  69 

Emerson,  perhaps,  believed —  in  this  sense  if  not  other 
wise  —  that  God  has  put  on  human  nature.  In  the 
American  Eepublic  he  saw  the  most  promising  field 
for  the  unhampered  working-out  of  this  Divine  in 
spiration  within  us. 

But  he  was  American  not  by  determination  only, 
but  by  the  constitution  of  his  mind.  His  catholic 
and  unflinching  acceptance  of  what  truth  soever  came 
to  him  was  in  accordance  with  the  American  idea, 
though  not,  unfortunately,  with  the  invariable  Amer 
ican  practice.  As  our  land  is  open  to  the  world  to 
come  and  inhabit  it,  so  was  his  mind  open  to  all 
vigorous  and  progressive  ideas,  be  their  hue  and 
parentage  what  they  might.  It  were  rash  to  pre 
dict  how  soon  America  will  reach  his  standard  of 
her  ideal ;  but  it  is  encouraging  to  remember  that 
nothing  in  her  political  construction  renders  its  final 
attainment  impossible. 

It  is  not  with  us  as  with  other  peoples.  Our  po 
sition  seems  vague,  because  not  primarily  related  to 
the  senses.  I  know  where  England  or  Italy  is,  and 
recognize  an  Englishman  or  an  Italian ;  but  Ameri 
cans  are  not,  to  the  same  extent,  limited  by  geo 
graphical  boundaries.  America  did  not  originate  as 
did  European  nations :  they  were  born  after  the  flesh, 
but  we  after  the  spirit.  Their  frontiers  must  be  de- 
feuded,  and  their  race  kept  distinct  ;  but  highly 
though  I  esteem  our  immeasurable  East  and  West, 
North  and  South,  our  Pacific  and  our  Atlantic  and 
our  Gulf  of  Mexico,  I  cannot  help  deeming  these  a 


70  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

secondary  matter.  If  America  be  not  more  than 
these  United  States,  then  the  United  States  are  lit 
tle  better  than  a  penal  colony.  It  is  convenient,  no 
doubt,  that  a  great  idea  shall  find  a  suitable  stage 
and  incarnation  ;  but  it  depends  not  upon  these 
things.  It  was  accidental,  or  I  would  rather  s^ay 
providential,  that  the  Puritans  came  to  New  Eng 
land,  or  that  Columbus  discovered  the  continent  for 
them  ;  but  the  body  is  instrumental  merely  :  it  ena 
bles  the  spirit  to  take  hold  of  its  mortal  affairs,  just 
as  the  hilt  enables  us  to  grasp  the  sword.  Had  the 
Puritans  not  come  to  New  England,  still  their  spirit 
would  have  lived,  and  somehow  made  its  place. 
How  many  Puritans,  indeed,  for  how  many  previous 
ages,  had  been  trying,  and  failing,  to  get  foothold 
in  the  world  !  They  were  known  by  many  names ; 
their  voice  was  heard  in  many  tongues :  the  hour  for 
them  to  touch  their  earthly  inheritance  had  not  yet 
struck.  But  the  latent  impetus  meanwhile  accu 
mulated,  and  the  "  Mayflower "  was  driven  across 
the  Atlantic  by  it  at  last ! 

And  the  "  Mayflower  "  sails  still  between  the  Old 
World  and  the  New.  Day  by  day  it  brings  new 
settlers,  if  not  to  Boston  Bay,  and  Castle  Garden, 
and  the  Golden  Gate,  at  any  rate  to  our  mental 
ports  and  wharves.  I  cannot  take  up  a  European 
newspaper  without  finding  an  American  idea  in  it. 
Many  of  us  make  the  trip  to  Europe  every  sum 
mer;  but  we  come  back,  and  bring  with  us  many 
more  who  come  to  stay.  I  do  not  specify  the  literal 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  71 

emigrants  in  the  steerage  ;  they  may  or  may  not  be 
Americans.  But  England  and  the  Continent  are  full 
of  Americans  who  were  bom  and  may  die  there, 
and  who  may  be  better  Americans  than  the  Bosto- 
nian  or  the  Xew  Yorker  who  votes  the  Eepublican, 
or  the  Democratic,  or  even  the  Independent  ticket. 
Whatever  their  birthplace  or  residence,  they  belong 
to  us,  and  are  with  us.  Broadway  and  Washington 
Street,  Xew  Hampshire  and  Colorado,  extend  all  over 
Europe.  Eussia  tries  to  banish  them  to  Siberia,  but 
in  vain.  Are  mountains  and  prairies  solid  facts  ?  — 
the  geography  of  the  mind  is  more  stubborn  !  I  dare 
say  there  are  oblique-eyed,  pig-tailed  Xew  Englanders 
in  the  Celestial  Empire.  Though  they  may  never  have 
visited  these  shores,  or  heard  of  Kearney,  they  think 
our  thought,  have  apprehended  our  idea,  and  by  and 
by  they  or  their  heirs  will  cause  it  to  prevail. 

It  is  useless  to  hide  our  heads  in  the  grass,  and 
shun  to  rise  to  the  height  of  our  occasion.  We  stand 
as  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy ;  we  attest  a  new  de 
parture  in  moral  and  intellectual  development,  —  or 
which  of  us  does  not,  must  suffer  annihilation.  If  I 
deny  my  birthright  as  an  American,  I  vanish  and  am 
not  missed ;  an  American  takes  my  place.  The  posi 
tion  is  not  altogether  luxurious  :  you  cannot  sit  and 
hold  your  hands.  Hard  and  unpleasant  things  are 
expected  of  you,  which  you  neglect  at  your  peril. 
It  is  Like  the  fable  of  the  mermaid :  she  loved  a  mor 
tal  youth,  and  in  order  to  win  his  affection  prayed 
for  the  limbs  and  feet  of  a  human  maiden.  Her 


o 


72  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

prayer  was  answered,  and  she  met  her  prince  ;  bu 
each  step  she  took  was  as  if  she  trod  on  razors.  S 
it  is  fine  to  sit  at  ease  and  reflect  on  being  American 
but  when  we  must  arise  and  do  an  American's  duty 
how  sharp  the  razors  are  ! 

We  do  not  always  stand  the  test ;  flesh  and  bloo< 
do  not  differ  essentially  on  different  sides  of  th 
planet.  Possibly  we  are  too  numerous.  It  wer 
strange  if  here  and  there  among  fifty  millions,  on 
were  not  quite  a  hero.  Possibly,  indeed,  that  littl 
original  band  of  "  Mayflower "  Pilgrims  has  no 
greatly  multiplied  since  their  disembarkation,  so  fa 
as  their  spiritual  progeny  are  concerned.  We  do  no 
find  a  succession  of  Winthrops  and  Endicotts  in  th 
chair  of  the  Governor  and  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate 
Bridget  serves  us  in  the  kitchen ;  but  Patrick,  mor 
helpful  yet,  enters  the  Legislature  and  serves  the  State 
But  turn  and  turn  about  is  fair  play ;  and  we  ough 
once  in  a  while  to  take  off  our  coat  and  do  unt< 
Patrick  as  he  does  unto  us. 

When  we  get  in  a  tight  place  we  are  apt  to  sli] 
out  under  a  plea  of  European  precedent;  but  wa 
it  not  to  avoid  European  precedents  that  we  cam< 
here  ?  America  should  take  the  highest  around  ii 

O  O 

her  political  and  commercial  relations.  Why  mus 
the  President  of  the  Western  Union,  for  instance,  o 
a  late  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  be  cited  as  typica 
Americans  ?  The  dominance  of  such  men  has  effect; 
out  of  proportion  with  their  personal  acts.  Wha 
they  may  do  is  of  small  import :  the  mischief  is  ii 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  73 

their  inclining  us  to  believe  (as  Emerson  puts  it)  in 
two  gods.  They  make  the  morality  of  Wall  Street 
and  the  White  House  seem  a  different  thing  from  that 
of  the  parlor  and  nursery.  "  He  may  be  a  little  shady 
on  'Change,"  we  say,  "  but  a  capital  fellow  when  you 
know  him."  But  if  I  am  a  capital  fellow  when  you 
know  me,  I  can  afford  to  be  shady  in  my  business.  I 
can  endure  public  opprobrium  so  long  as  it  remains 
public :  it  is  the  private  cold  looks  that  trouble  me. 

In  short,  we  have  two  Americas,  —  the  street- 
corner  and  newspaper  America,  and  the  ideal  Amer 
ica.  At  present,  the  former  makes  the  most  noise ; 
but  the  latter  has  made  the  former  possible.  A  great 
crowd  is  drawn  together  for  some  noble  purpose,  — 
to  declare  a  righteous  war,  or  to  pass  a  just  decree. 
But  there  are  persons  on  the  outskirts  unable  to  hear 
the  orators,  and  with  time  hanging  idle  on  their 
hands,  who  take  to  throwing  bricks,  smashing  hats, 
or  perhaps  picking  pockets.  They  may  have  assem 
bled  with  virtuous  and  patriotic  intentions;  under 
favorable  circumstances  they  might  themselves  have 
been  the  orators.  Virtue  and  patriotism  are  not 
private  property ;  at  certain  times  any  one  may  pos 
sess  them.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  how  often  do 
we  see  persons  of  high  respectability  and  trust  turn 
out  sorry  scamps  !  We  vary  according  to  our  com 
pany  and  the  event :  the  outlook  may  be  sordid  to 
day,  but  during  the  Civil  War  the  air  was  full  of 
heroism.  So  the  real  and  the  ideal  America,  though 
far  apart  in  one  sense,  are,  in  another,  as  near  as  our 


74  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

right  hand  to  our  left.  They  exist  side  by  side  in 
each  one  of  us.  But  civil  war  comes  not  every  day ; 
nor  do  we  desire  it,  even  to  show  us  once  more  that 
we  are  worthy  of  our  destiny.  Some  less  expensive 
and  quieter  method  must  remind  us  of  that.  And  of 
such  methods  none,  perhaps,  is  better  than  to  review 
the  lives  of  Americans  who  were  truly  great :  to  ask 
what  their  country  meant  to  them  ;  what  they  asked 
of  her ;  what  virtues  and  vices  they  detected  in  her. 
Passion  may  be  generous,  but  cannot  last,  and  coldness 
and  indifference  follow ;  but  in  calm  moods  reason  and 
example  reach  us,  and  their  lesson  abides. 

Although  many  a  true  American  is  born  and  dies 
abroad,  Emerson  was  born  and  died  here.  In  the 
outward  accidents  of  generation  and  descent,  he 
could  not  have  been  more  American  than  he  was. 
Of  course,  one  prefers  that  it  should  be  so.  A  rare 
gem  should  be  fitly  set.  It  helps  us  to  believe  in 
ourselves  to  know  that  Emerson's  ancestry  was  not 
only  Puritan  but  clerical ;  that  through  his  heart 
ran  the  vital  thread  of  the  idea  that  created  us.  We 
have  many  traits  not  found  in  him  ;  but  nothing  in 
him  is  not  a  sublimation  and  concentration  of  some 
thing  in  us;  and  such  is  the  selection  and  grouping 
of  the  elements  that  lie  is  a  typical  figure.  Indeed, 
he  is  all  type ;  which  is  the  same  as  to  say  there 
is  nobody  like  him.  And,  mentally,  he  is  all  force ; 
his  mind  acts  without  natural  impediment  or  fric 
tion, —  a  machine  that  runs  unhindered  by  the  contact 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  75 

of  its  parts.  As  he  was  physically  lean  and  slender 
of  figure,  and  his  face  but  a  welding  together  of  fea 
tures,  so  there  was  no  adipose  tissue  in  his  thought. 
It  is  pure,  clear,  and  accurate,  and  has  the  fault  of 
dryness,  hut  often  moves  with  exquisite  beauty.  It 
is  not  adhesive  ;  it  sticks  to  nothing  except  to  the 
memory,  nor  anything  to  it.  After  ranging  through 
the  philosophies  of  the  world,  it  emerges  clean  and 
characteristic  as  ever.  It  has  many  affinities,  but  no 
adhesion  ;  it  is  not  always  self-adherent.  There  are 
in  any  of  his  essays  separate  statements  presenting 
no  logical  continuity ;  but  though  this  may  cause 
anxiety  to  disciples  of  Emerson,  it  never  troubled 
him.  Wandering  at  will  in  the  garden  of  moral  and 
religious  philosophy,  it  was  his  part  to  pluck  such 
blossoms  as  he  saw  were  good  and  beautiful,  —  not 
to  discover  their  botanical  relationship.  He  might, 
for  art  or  harmony's  sake,  arrange  them  according  to 
their  hue  or  fragrance ;  but  it  was  not  his  affair  to  go 
further  in  their  classification. 

This  intuitional  method,  how  little  soever  it  satisfies 
those  who  want  their  thinking  done  for  them,  —  who 
want  not  only  all  the  cities  of  the  earth,  but  straight 
roads  to  connect  them,  —  carries  its  own  justification. 
"  There  is  but  one  Reason,"  is  Emerson's  saying  ;  and 
we  confess  again  and  again  that  the  truth  he  asserts 
is  true  indeed.  Even  his  divergences  from  the  truth, 
when  he  is  betrayed  into  them,  confirm  the  rule  ;  for 
these  are  seldom  intuitions  at  first  hand,  but  intui 
tions  from  previous  intuitions,  —  deductions.  They 


76  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

are  from  Emerson,  instead  of  from  the  Absolute ; 
tinted,  instead  of  colorless.  They  show  a  mental 
bias,  redeeming  him  back  to  humanity.  We  love 
him  the  more  for  them,  because  they  imply  that  for 
him,  too,  was  a  choice  of  ways,  and  that  he  struggled 
and  watched  to  choose  the  right. 

We  are  so  w^edded  to  systems,  and  so  prone  to 
connect  a  system  with  a  man,  that  Emerson's  absence 
of  system  strikes  us  as  a  defect.  But  truth  has  no 
system,  nor  has  the  human  mind.  We  cannot  bear 
to  be  illogical,  and  enlist,  some  under  this  philos 
opher's  banner,  some  under  that ;  and  so  sacrifice 
to  consistency  at  least  half  the  truth.  We  cross- 
examine  our  intuitions,  and  ask  them,  not  whether 
they  are  true  in  themselves,  but  what  are  their  ten 
dencies.  If  they  would  lead  us  to  stultify  some 
past  conclusion  to  which  we  stand  committed,  we 
drop  them  like  hot  coals.  This,  to  Emerson,  was  the 
nakedest  personal  vanity.  Recognizing  his  finite- 
ness,  he  did  not  covet  consistency.  One  thing  was 
true  to-day  :  to-morrow,  its  opposite.  Was  it  for  him 
to  elect  which  should  have  the  preference  ?  To  re 
ject  either  was  to  reject  all :  it  belonged  to  God  to 
reconcile  such  contradictions.  Between  Infinite  and 
finite  can  exist  no  ratio ;  and  the  Creator's  consis 
tency  implies  the  inconsistency  of  the  creature. 

Emerson's  Americanism,  therefore,  was  American 
ism  in  its  last  and  purest  analysis,  —  which  is  giving 
him  praise,  and  to  America  hope.  But  let  me  not 
pay  him,  who  was  so  full  of  modesty  and  humility, 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  77 

the  ungrateful  compliment  of  holding  him  up  as  our 
permanent  ideal.  It  is  his  tendency,  his*  quality, 
that  are  valuable,  and  only  in  a  minor  degree  his 
actual  results.  All  human  results  are  limited,  and 
according  to  the  epoch.  Emerson  does  not  solve  for 
all  time  the  problem  of  the  universe.  He  solves 
nothing ;  but,  what  is  more  useful,  he  gives  impetus 
and  direction  to  lofty  endeavor.  He  does  not  antici 
pate  the  lessons  of  the  ages ;  but  he  teaches  us  so  to 
deal  with  circumstance  as  to  secure  the  good  instead 
of  the  evil  issue.  New  horizons  opening  before  us 
will  carry  us  beyond  the  scope  of  Emerson's  surmise ; 
but  we  shall  not  easily  improve  upon  his  aim  and 
attitude.  In  spaces  beyond  the  stars  are  marvels 
such  as  it  has  not  entered  into  the  mind  of  man  to 
conceive ;  but  there,  as  here,  the  right  aspiration  will 
still  be  upward,  and  the  right  conduct  still  be  humble 
and  charitable. 

I  spoke  of  Emerson's  absence  of  system ;  yet  his 
writings  have  coherence  by  virtue  of  their  single- 
hearted  motive.  Those  with  whom,  in  this  tribute 
to  our  beloved  poet  and  sage,  I  have  the  honor  to 
be  associated,  will  doubtless  notice,  as  I  do,  how  the 
whole  of  Emerson  illustrates  every  aspect  of  him. 
"\Vhether  your  subject  be  his  religion,  his  ethics,  his 
social  aspects,  or  what  not,  your  picture  gains  color 
and  form  from  each  page  that  he  has  written.  All 
that  he  is  permeates  all  that  he  has  done.  His  books 
cannot  be  indexed,  and  he  can  treat  no  topic  without 
incorporating  in  his  statement  the  germs  at  least  of 


78  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

all  his  thought  and  belief.  In  this  respect  he  illus 
trates  tlie  definition  of  light,  —  the  presence  of  the 
general  at  the  particular.  And,  to  say  truth,  I  am 
somewhat  loath  to  diffract  this  pure  ray  to  the  arbi 
trary  end  of  my  special  theme.  Why  speak  of  him 
as  an  American  ?  He  was  American  because  he  was 
himself.  But  America  gives  less  limitation  than  other 
nationalities  to  a  generous  and  serene  personality. 

Emerson's  "  English  Traits "  perhaps  reveal  his 
American  traits  more  than  most  that  he  has  written. 
We  are  described  by  our  criticisms  of  others:  the 
exceptions  we  take  are  the  mould  of  our  own  figures. 
So  this  volume  affords  valuable  glimpses  of  Emerson's 
contours.  And  it  is  almost  as  remarkable  a  work  for 
him  to  write,  as  a  volume  of  his  essays  would  be  for 
any  one  else  ;  it  is  to  his  other  books  as  flesh  and 
blood  to  spirit.  Emersonian  flesh  and  blood,  it  is 
true,  and  serni-translucent ;  but  it  completes  the  man 
for  us :  without  it,  he  would  have  been  too  problem 
atical  Those  who  never  personally  knew  him  may 
here  finish  and  solidify  their  impressions  of  him. 
His  sympathy  with  England  and  the  English  is  be 
yond  our  expectation  of  the  mind  that  evolved  "  Na 
ture  "  and  "  The  Over-Soul."  The  grasp  of  his  hand, 
I  remember,  was  firm  and  stout,  and  we  perceive 
those  qualities  in  the  cordiality  of  "  English  Traits." 
And  it  is  an  objective  book ;  it  affords  a  unique  basis 
for  comparing  his  general  human  faculty  with  that 
of  other  men.  He  relents  from  the  airy  heights  he 
treads  so  easily,  and  descends  to  measure  himself 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  79 

against  all  comers.  He  means  only  to  report  their 
stature,  leaving  himself  out  of  the  story ;  but  their 
answers  reveal  the  questioner.  We  suspect  (though 
he  did  not)  that  his  English  friends  were  put  to  it 
to  keep  the  pace  of  their  clear-faced,  penetrating, 
attentive  visitor. 

He  has  seldom  said  of  his  own  countrymen  such 
comfortable  things  as  he  vouchsafes  to  the  English : 
as  a  father  who  is  severe  with  his  own  children  will 
N  freely  admire  others,  for  whom  he  is  not  responsible. 
Emerson  is  stern  towards  what  we  are,  and  arduous 
indeed  in  his  estimate  of  what  we  ought  to  be.  He 
intimates  that  we  are  not  quite  worthy  yet  of  our 
continent,  —  have  not  yet  lived  up  to  our  blue 
china.  ^  In  America  the  geography  is  sublime,  but 
the  men  are  not.  Even  our  more  presentable  public 
acts  are  due  to  the  money-making  spirit.  The  bene 
faction  derived  in  the  great  West  from  railroads 
vastly  exceeds  any  intentional  philanthropy  on  record. 
He  will  not  celebrate  the  Forty-niners,  though  ad 
mitting  that  California  gets  civilized  in  this  immoral 
way;  and  is  fain  to  suppose  that,  just  as  there  is 
a  use  in  the  world  for  poisons,  so  the  world  cannot 
move  without  rogues.  Huge  animals  (like  America) 
nourish  huge  parasites,  and  the  rancor  of  the  disease 
attests  the  strength  of  the  constitution.  He  ridicules 
our  unsuspecting  provincialism.  "  Have  you  seen 
the  dozen  great  men  of  Xew  York  and  Boston  ? 
Then  you  may  as  well  die  I "  He  does  not  spare  our 
tendency  to  declamation ;  quotes  a  shrewd  foreigner's 


80  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

remark  that  whatever  we  say  has  a  little  the  air  of  a 
speech,  and  proceeds  to  ask  whether  the  American 
forest  has  refreshed  some  weeds  of  old  Pictish  bar- 
barism  just  ready  to  die  out.  He  finds  the  especial 
foible  of  American  youth  to  be  —  pretension ;  and 
remarks,  suggestively,  that  we  talk  about  the  "  key  of 
the  age,"  but  the  key  of  all  ages  is  imbecility  !  (  He  will 
not  be  reconciled  to  the  mania  for  travel :  there  is  a 
restlessness  in  our  people  that  argues  want  of  char 
acter  ;  can  we  never  extract  this  tape- worm  of  Europe 

from  our  brains  ?  }  Yet  he  concedes  that  we  cro  to  Eu- 
/  ° 

rope  to  be  Americanized,  and  has  faith  that  one  day 
we  shall  cast  out  the  passion  for  Europe  by  the  pas 
sion  for  America.  As  for  our  political  doings,  —  poli 
tics  is  an  after-word,  a  poor  patching  :  we  shall  learn 
to  supersede  politics  by  education.  He  sympathizes 
with  Lovelace,  and  holds  that  freedom  and  slavery 
are  inward,  not  outward,  conditions.  Slavery  is  not 
in  fetters,  but  in  feeling ;  you  cannot  by  external  re 
strictions  eradicate  the  irons ;  and  the  way  to  eman 
cipate  the  slave  is  to  make  him  comprehend  his 
inviolable  dignity  and  freedom  as  a  human  being. 
Amelioration  of  outward  circumstances  will  be  the 
effect,  but  can  never  be  the  means,  of  mental  and 
moral  improvement.  Nothing,  he  affirms,  is  more 
disgusting  than  the  crowing  about  liberty  by  slaves, 
as  most  men  are,  and  the  flippant  mistaking  for  free 
dom  of  some  paper  preamble,  like  a  Declaration  of 
Independence,  or  the  statute  right  to  vote.  Our 
America  has  a  bad  name  for  superficialness.  Great 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  81 

men  and  great  nations  have  not  been  boasters  and 
buffoons,  but  pereeivers  of  the  terrors  of  life,  and 
have  nerved  themselves  to  face  it.  Xor  will  he  be 
deceived  by  the  clamor  of  blatant  reformers.  "  If 
an  angry  bigot  assumes  the  bountiful  cause  of  Aboli 
tion,  and  comes  to  me  with  his  last  news  from  Bar- 
badoes,  why  should  I  not  say  to  him,  '  Go,  love  thy 
infant ;  love  thy  woodchopper ;  be  good-natured  and 
modest;  have  that  grace,  and  never  varnish  your 
hard,  uncharitable  ambition  with  this  incredible  ten 
derness  for  black  folk  a  thousand  miles  off!" 

He  does  not  shrink  from  questioning  the  validity 
of  some  of  our  pet  institutions,  —  universal  suffrage, 
for  instance.  In  old  Egypt  the  vote  of  a  prophet 
was  reckoned  equal  to  one  hundred  hands,  and  was 
much  underestimated.  Shall  we,  then,  he  asks,  judge 
a  country  by  the  majority,  or  by  the  minority  ?  By 
the  minority,  surely !  T  is  pedantry  to  estimate  na 
tions  by  the  census,  or  by  square  miles  of  territory, 
or  other  than  by  their  importance  to  the  mind  of  the 
time.  The  majority  are  unripe,  and  know  not  yet 
their  own  opinion.  Yet  he  would  not  counsel  organic 
alteration  in  this  respect,  believing  that  with  the 
progress  of  enlightenment  such  coarse  constructions 
of  human  rights  will  adjust  themselves.  He  concedes 
the  sagacity  of  the  Fultons  and  Watts  of  politics, 
who,  noticing  that  the  opinion  of  the  million  was 
the  terror  of  the  world,  grouped  it  on  a  level,  instead 
of  piling  it  into  a  mountain,  and  so  contrived  to 
make  of  this  terror  the  most  harmless  and  energetic 

6 


82  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

form  of  a  State.  But,  again,  he  would  not  have  us 
regard  the  State  as  a  finality,  or  as  relieving  any  man 
of  his  individual  responsibility  for  his  actions  and 
purposes.  Confide  in  God,  and  not  in  your  money, 
nor  in  the  State  because  it  is  the  guard  of  it.  The 
Union  itself  has  no  basis  but  the  good  pleasure  of 
the  majority  to  be  united.  The  wise  and  just  men 
impart  strength  to  the  State,  not  receive  it;  and  if 
all  went  down,  they  and  their  like  would  soon  com 
bine  in  a  new  and  better  constitution.  Yet  let  us 
not  forget  that  only  by  the  supernatural  is  man 
strong,  —  nothing  so  weak  as  an  egotist.  We  are 
mighty  only  as  vehicles  of  a  truth  before  which 
State  and  individual  are  alike  ephemeral.  In  this 
sense  we,  like  other  nations,  shall  have  our  kings 
and  nobles,  —  the  leading  and  inspiration  of  the  best ; 
and  he  who  would  become  a  member  of  that  nobility 
must  obey  his  heart. 

Government,  which  has  been  a  fossil,  must,  he 
says,  become  a  plant:  statute  law  should  express, 
not  impede,  the  mind  of  mankind.  Feudalism  suc 
ceeds  monarchy,  and  this,  again,  is  followed  by  trade ; 
the  good  and  evil  of  which  is,  that  it  would  put 
everything  in  the  market,  —  talent,  beauty,  virtue, 
and  man  himself.  Trade  has  done  its  work ;  it  has 
faults,  and  will  end,  as  the  others.  We  need  not  fear 
its  aristocracy,  because,  not  being  entailed,  it  can 
have  no  permanence.  In  the  time  to  come  we  shall, 
he  hopes,  be  less  anxious  to  be  governed :  government 
without  governors  will,  for  the  first  time,  be  adaman- 


EMERSON  AS  AX  AMERICAN.  S3 

tine ;  each  man  shall  govern  himself  in  the  interests 
of  all.  These  are  radical  views,  but  Emerson  asks 
whether  every  man  is  not  sometimes  a  radical  in 
politics  ?  Men  are  conservative  when  they  are  least 
vigorous  or  most  luxurious ;  for  Conservatism  stands 
on  man's  limitations,  Eefonn  on  his  infinitude. 

But  the  age  of  the  quadruped  is  going  out ;  the  age 
of  brain  and  heart  is  coming  in.  We  are  still  too  pet 
tifogging  and  imitative  in  our  legislative  conceptions ; 
our  Legislature  should  become  more  catholic  and  cos 
mopolitan  than  any  other.  Strong  natures  are  inevi 
table  patriots ;  let  us  be  strong  enough  to  trust  in 
humanity.  The  time,  the  age,  —  what  is  that  but  a 
few  prominent  persons  and  a  few  active  persons  who 
epitomize  the  times  ?  There  is  a  bribe  possible  for 
any  finite  will ;  but  the  pure  sympathy  with  univer 
sal  ends  is  an  infinite  force,  and  cannot  be  bribed  or 
bent.  The  world  wants  saviors  and  religions  :  so 
ciety  is  servile  from  want  of  will ;  but  there  is  a  des 
tiny  by  which  the  human  race  is  guided,  —  the  race 
never  dying,  the  individual  never  spared  •  its  law  is, 
you  shall  have  everything  as  a  member,  nothing  to 
yourself.  Eeferring  to  the  various  communities  so 
much  in  vogue  some  years  ago,  he  holds  them  valu 
able,  not  for  what  they  have  done,  but  for  the  indica 
tion  they  give  of  the  revolution  that  is  on  the  way. 
Communities  place  faith  in  mutual  support ;  but 
only  as  a  man  puts  off  from  himself  external  support 
is  he  strong,  and  will  he  prevail.  He  is  weaker  by 
every  recruit  to  his  banner.  A  man  ought  to  compare 


84  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

advantageously  with  a  river,  an  oak,  or  a  mountain. 
He  must  not  shun  whatever  comes  to  him  in  the  way 
of  duty  :  the  only  path  of  escape  is  —  performance  ! 
He  must  rely  on  Providence,  but  not  in  a  timid  or 
ecclesiastical  spirit ;  no  use  to  dress  up  that  terrific 
benefactor  in  the  clean  shirt  and  white  neck-cloth 
of  a  student  of  divinity.  We  shall  come  out  well, 
despite  whatever  personal  or  political  disasters;  for 
here,  in  America,  is  the  home  of  man.  After  de 
ducting  our  pitiful  politics,  —  shall  John  or  Jonathan 
sit  in  the  chair  and  hold  the  purse  ?  —  and  making 
due  allowance  for  our  frivolities  and  insanities,  there 
still  remains  an  organic  simplicity  and  liberty,  which, 
when  it  loses  its  balance,  redresses  itself  presently, 
and  which  offers  to  the  human  mind  opportunities 
not  known  elsewhere. 

Whenever  Emerson  touches  upon  the  fundamental 
elements  of  social  and  rational  life,  it  is  always  to 
enlarge  and  illuminate  our  conceptions  of  them.  We 
are  not  \vont,  for  example,  to  question  the  propriety 
of  the  sentiment  of  patriotism.  We  are  to  swear  by 
our  own  Lares  and  Penates,  and  stand  by  the  Ameri 
can  eagle,  right  or  wrong.  But  Emerson  instantly 
goes  beneath  this  interpretation,  and  exposes  its 
crudity.  The  true  sense  of  patriotism  is  almost  the 
reverse  of  the  popular  sense.  He  has  no  sympathy 
with  that  boyish  egotism,  hoarse  with  cheering  for 
our  side,  for  our  State,  for  our  town :  the  right  pa 
triotism  consists  in  the  delight  which  springs  from 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  85 

contributing  our  peculiar  and  legitimate  advantages 
to  the  benefit  of  humanity.  Every  foot  of  soil  has  its 
proper  quality ;  the  grape  on  two  sides  of  the  fence 
has  new  flavors ;  and  so  every  acre  on  the  globe, 
every  family  of  men,  every  point  of  climate,  has  its  dis 
tinguishing  virtues.  This  admitted,  Emerson  yields 
in  patriotism  to  no  one ;  he  is  only  concerned  that 
the  advantages  we  contribute  shall  be  as  many  in 
stead  of  as  few  as  possible.  This  country,  he  says, 
does  not  lie  here  in  the  sun  causeless ;  and,  though 
it  may  not  be  easy  to  define  its  influence,  men  feel 
already  its  emancipating  quality  in  the  careless  self- 
reliance  of  the  manners,  in  the  freedom  of  thought, 
in  the  direct  roads  by  which  grievances  are  reached 
and  redressed,  and  even  in  the  reckless  and  sinister 
politics,  —  not  less  than  in  purer  expressions.  Bad 
as  it  is,  this  freedom  leads  onward  and  upward  to  a 
Columbia  of  thought  and  art,  which  is  the  last  and 
endless  end  of  Columbus'  adventure.  Xor  is  this 
poet  of  virtue  and  philosophy  ever  more  truty  patri 
otic,  from  his  spiritual  stand-point,  than  when  he 
casts  scorn  and  indignation  upon  his  country's  sins 
and  frailties :  — 

"  But  who  is  he  that  prates  of  the  culture  of  mankind  ? 
Go,  blind  worm,  go,  —  behold  the  famous  States  harrying  Mexico 
"With  rifle  and  with  knife  ! 

"  Or  who,   with  accent    bolder,    dare  praise  the  freedom-loving 

mountaineer  ? 
I  found   by  thee,    0   rushing  Contoocook,  and  in  thy  valleys, 

Agiochook, 
The  jackals  of  the  negro-holder  ! 


86  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

11  What  boots  thy  zeal,  0  glowing  friend,  who  wouldst  indignant 

rend 

The  northland  from  the  south  ? 

Wherefore  ?  to  what  good  end  ?    Boston  Bay  and  Bunker  Hill 
would  serve  things  still ;  —  things  are  of  the  snake  ! 

'T  is  the  day  of  the  chattel,  —  web  to  weave,  and  corn  to  grind; 
Things  are  in  the  saddle,  and  ride  mankind  !  " 

It  is  worth  noting  that  he,  whose  verse  is  uni 
formly  so  abstractly  and  intellectually  beautiful, 
kindles  to  passion  whenever  his  theme  is  America. 
The  loftiest  patriotism  never  found  more  ardent  and 
eloquent  expression  than  in  the  hymn  sung  at  the 
completion  of  Concord  Monument,  on  the  19th  of 
April,  1836.  There  is  no  rancor  in  it,  no  taunt  of 
triumph,  — 

"  The  foe  long  since  in  silence  slept,"  — 

but  throughout  there  resounds  a  note  of  pure  and 
deep  rejoicing  at  the  victory  of  justice  over  oppres 
sion,  which  Concord  Fight  so  aptly  symbolized.  In 
"  Hamatreya  "  and  "  The  Earth-Song  "  another  chord 
is  struck,  of  calm,  laconic  irony.  Shall  we  too,  he 
asks,  —  we  Yankee  farmers,  descendants  of  the  men 
who  gave  up  all  for  freedom,  —  go  back  to  the  creed 
outworn  of  feudalism  and  aristocracy,  and  affirm  of 
the  land  that  yields  us  produce, 

"  'T  is  mine,  my  children's,  and  my  name's  "  ? 

Earth  laughs  in  flowers  at  our  boastfulness,  and 
asks,  — 

"How  am  I  theirs, 
If  they  cannot  hold  me, 
But  I  hold  them  ? " 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  87 

Or  read  "  Monadnoc,"  and  mark  the  insight  and 
power  wherewith  the  significance  of  the  great  facts 
of  Nature  is  stated  :  — 

"  Complement  of  human  kind,  having  us  at  vantage  still, 
Our  sumptuous  indigence,  0  barren  mound,  thy  plenties  fill ! 
We  fool  and  prate  ;  thou  art  silent  and  sedate. 
To  myriad  kinds  and  times  one  sense  the  constant  mountain  doth 

dispense  ; 
Shedding  on  all  its  snows  and  leaves  ;  one  joy  it  joys,  one  grief  it 

grieves. 

Thou  seest,  0  watchman  tall,  our  towns  and  races  grow  and  fall, 
And  imagest  the  stable  good  for  which  we  all  our  lifetime  grope, 
And  though  the  substance  us  elude,  we  in  thee  the  shadow  find. 

Thou  dost  supply  the  shortness  of  our  days, 
And  promise,  on  thy  Founder's  truth,  long  morrow  to  this  mor 
tal  youth  !  " 

Xo  other  poet  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  has 
caused  the  very  spirit  of  the  land  —  the  mother  of 
men  —  to  express  itself  so  adequately  as  Emerson 
has  done. 

Emerson  is  continually  urging  us  to  give  heed  to 
this  grand  voice  of  hills  and  streams,  and  to  mould 
ourselves  upon  its  suggestions.  The  difficulty  and 
anomaly  consist  in  the  fact  that  we  are  not  native ; 
that  England,  quite  as  much  as  Monadnoc,  is  our 
mother ;  that  we  are  heirs  of  memories  and  traditions 
reaching  far  beyond  the  times  and  boundaries  of  the 
Eepublic.  We  cannot  assume  the  splendid  child- 
likeness  of  the  great  primitive  races,  and  exhibit 
the  hairy  strength  and  unconscious  genius  that  the 
poet  longs  to  find  in  us.  He  remarks  somewhere 


88  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

that  the  culminating  period  of  good  in  Nature  and 
the  world  is  at  just  that  moment  of  transition,  when 
the  hairy  juices  still  flow  plentifully  from  Nature, 
but  their  astringency  and  acidity  is  got  out  by  ethics 
and  humanity. 

It  was  at  such  a  period  that  Greece  attained  her 
apogee ;  but  our  experience,  I  think,  must  needs  be 
cTifferent.  Our  story  is  not  of  birth,  but  of  regenera 
tion,  —  a  far  more  subtile  and  less  obvious  transac 
tion.  The  Homeric  California,  of  which  Bret  Harte 
is  the  reporter,  is  not,  in  the  closest  sense,  American. 
"A  sturdy  lad  from  New  Hampshire  or  Vermont," 
says  Emerson,  "  who  in  turn  tries  all  the  professions, 
—  who  teams  it,  farms  it,  peddles,  keeps  a  school, 
preaches,  edits  a  newspaper,  goes  to  Congress,  buys 
a  township,  and  so  forth,  in  successive  years,  and 
always,  like  a  cat,  falls  on  his  feet,  —  is  worth  a 
hundred  of  these  city  dolls.  He  walks  abreast  with 
his  days,  and  feels  no  shame  in  not  studying  a 
'  profession/  for  he  does  not  postpone  his  life,  but 
lives  it  already." 

That  is  poignantly  said ;  and  yet  few  of  the  Ameri 
cans  whom  we  recognize  as  great  have  had  such  a 
history;  nor,  had  they  had  it,  would  they  on  that 
account  be  any  the  more  American.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  careers  of  men  like  Jim  Fiske  and  Jay 
Gould  might  serve  well  as  illustrations  of  the  above 
sketch.  If  we  must  wait  for  our  national  character 
until  our  geographical  advantages  and  the  absence 
of  social  distinctions  manufacture  it  for  us,  we  are 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  89 

likely  to  remain  a  long  time  in  suspense.  When  our 
foreign  visitors  begin  to  evince  a  keener  interest  in 
Beacon  Hill  and  Fifth  Avenue  than  in  the  Missis 
sippi  and  the  Yellowstone,  we  may  infer  that  we  are 
assuming  our  proper  stature  relative  to  our  physical 
environment.  "  The  Land,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  a 
sanative  and  Americanizing  influence,  which  promises 
to  disclose  new  virtues  for  ages  to  come."  Well, 
when  we  are  virtuous  we  may,  perhaps,  spare  our 
own  blushes  by  allowing  our  topography  symboli 
cally  to  celebrate  us,  and  when  our  admirers  would 
worship  the  purity  of  our  intuitions,  refer  them  to 
Walden  Pond ;  or  to  Mount  Shasta,  when  they  would 
expatiate  upon  our  lofty  idealism.  Meanwhile,  it  is 
perhaps  true  that  the  chances  of  leading  a  decent  life 
are  greater  in  a  palace  than  in  a  pigsty. 

But  this  is  holding  the  poet  too  strictly  to  the  let 
ter  of  his  message ;  and  at  any  rate  the  Americanism 
of  Emerson  is  better  than  anything  that  he  has  said 
in  its  vindication.  He  is  the  champion  of  the  Repub 
lic  ;  he  is  our  future  living  in  our  present,  and  show 
ing  the  world,  by  anticipation,  what  sort  of  excellence 
we  are  capable  of.  A  nation  that  has  produced 
Emerson,  and  can  recognize  in  him  flesh  of  her  flesh 
and  bone  of  her  bone,  —  and,  still  more,  spirit  of 
her  spirit,  —  that  nation  may  look  forward  with  secu 
rity.  But  he  has  done  more  than  to  prophesy  of  his 
country :  he  js  electric,  and  stimulates  us  to  fulfil 
our  destiny.  To  use  a  phrase  of  his  own,  we  cannot 


90  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

hear  of  personal  vigor  of  any  kind  —  great  power  of 
performance  —  without  fresh  resolution. )  Emerson 
helps  us  most  in  provoking  us  to  help  ourselves. 
After  Concord  Fight,  it  is  Emerson  who  has  made 
Concord's  reputation,  —  or,  rather,  its  reputation  has 
been  he.  More  victorious  even  than  the  embattled 
farmers  of  a  century  ago,  he  attracted  invaders  in 
stead  of  repelling  them.  No  one  can  take  his  place, 
now  that  he  is  gone ;  but  the  memory  of  him,  and 
the  purity  and  vitality  of  the  thoughts  and  of  the 
example  with  which  he  has  enriched  the  world,  will 
abide  longer  than  many  lifetimes,  and  will  renew 
again  and  again,  before  an  ever-widening  audience, 
the  summons  to  virtue  and  the  faith  in  immortality 
which  were  the  burden  and  the  glory  of  his  song. 

The  pleasantest  kind  of  revenge  is  that  which  we 
can  sometimes  take  upon  great  men  in  quoting  of 
themselves  what  they  have  said  of  others.  It  is 
easy  to  be  so  revenged  upon  Emerson,  because  he 
has  been  so  broadly  generous  and  cordial  in  his 
appreciation  of  human  worth.  "  If  there  should 
appear  in  the  company,"  he  observes,  "  some  gentle 
soul  who  knows  little  of  persons  and  parties,  of 
Carolina  or  Cuba,  but  who  announces  a  law  that  dis 
poses  these  particulars,  and  so  certifies  me  of  the 
equity  which  checkmates  every  false  player,  bank 
rupts  every  self-seeker,  and  apprises  me  of  my  inde 
pendence  on  any  conditions  of  country,  or  time,  or 
human  body,  —  that  man  liberates  me.  I  arn  made 


EMERSON  AS  AN  AMERICAN.  91 

immortal  by  apprehending  my  possession  of  incor 
ruptible  goods."  Who  can  state  the  mission  and 
effect  of  Emerson  more  tersely  and  aptly  than  in 
those  words  ? 

But  he  does  not  need  eulogiums,  and  it  seems  half 
ungenerous  to  force  them  upon  him  now  that  he  can 
no  longer  defend  himself.  So  I  will  conclude  by 
repeating  a  passage,  characteristic  of  him  both  as  a 
man  and  as  an  American,  which  perhaps  conveys  a 
sounder  and  healthier  criticism,  both  for  us  and  for 
him,  than  any  mere  nerveless  admiration.  For  great 
men  are  great  only  in  so  far  as  they  liberate  us ;  and 
in  courting  their  tyranny  we  undo  their  work.  The 
passage  runs  thus  :  — 

"  Let  me  remind  you  that  I  am  only  an  experimenter. 
Do  not  set  the  least  value  on  what  I  do,  or  the  least  dis 
credit  on  what  I  do  not,  —  as  if  I  pretended  to  settle 
anything  as  true  or  false.  I  unsettle  all  things  :  no  facts 
to  me  are  sacred,  none  profane.  I  simply  experiment,  — 
an  endless  Seeker,  with  no  Past  at  my  back ! " 


92  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


IV. 
A  FEENCH  VIEW   OF  EMERSON. 

BY  M.    RENfi  DE  POYEN   BELLEISLE. 

"  Le  poete  inspire,  lorsque  la  terre  ignore, 
Ressemble  a  ces  grands  monts  que  la  nouvelle  aurore 
Dore  avant  tons  a  son.  reveil ; 
Et  qui,  longtemps  vainqueurs  de  1'ombre, 
Conservent  j  usque  dans  la  nuit  sombre 
Les  derniers  rayons  du  soleil." 

MESDAMES,  MESSIEURS  :  Si  je  debute  par  ces  vers 
de  Victor  Hugo,  c'est  que  je  trouve  qu'il  y  a  admira- 
blement  exprime  1'idee  que  je  me  fais  du  poete  ;  et, 
que  si  un  mot,  un  seul,  pouvait  exprimer  mon  opinion 
sur  Emerson ;  je  dirai :  c'est  un  poete.  Mais  il  ne 
s'agit  pas  de  le  comparer  ici  avec  d'autres  poetes  ni 
d'examiner  ce  qu'il  n'a  pas  fait  ou  ce  qu'il  aurait  pu 
faire.  La  methode  critique  la  plus  simple  et  la  plus 
sure  quand  on  se  trouve  en  presence  d'un  poete  &, 
etudier,  c'est  de  rechercher  d'abord  quelle  etait  sa 
conception  generale  de  son  art  et  en  second  lieu 
comment  il  s'y  est  conforme. 

En  ce  qui  coucerne  Emerson,  la  premiere  partie  de 
cette  e*tude  est  facile,  car  dans  ses  Essais  il  a  plus 
d'une  fois  et  longuement  expose"  ses  vues  sur  la 
poesie.  Ce  qu'il  y  a  de  rnieux  a  faire  c'est  done  de 


Or  ,- 

*5^L 

A  FRENCH   VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  93 

le  laisser  parler  pour  lui-ineme,  on  du  moms  tenter  de 
vous  faire  entendre  un  echo  de  sa  voix  puissante.  * 

L'homme,  place  dans  1'Univers  an  milieu  des  phe- 
nomenes  de  la  Xature  et  des  manifestations  sans  cesse 
renaissantes  de  1'activite  de  ses  semblables,  a  d'abord 
un  sentiment  de  diversite  infinie.  Le  poete  est 
I'liomme  qui,  doue  (Tune  vue  plus  puissante  que  le 
conimun  des  homines,  penetre  au-dela  de  ces  appa- 
rences,  de  cette  variete,  et  decouvre  derriere  cette 
diversite  de  la  surface  une  unite  qui  est  au  fond. 
Plus  il  s'approchera  de  ce  point  central  ou  tout  s'unit 
et  plus  grand  sera  le  Poete.  Dans  son  expression  la 
plus  elevee,  la  Poesie  se  confond  avec  la  Religion ;  les 
plus  grand  poetes  sont  les  instructeurs  religieux,  et  les 
Bibles  des  nations  seront  ecrites.  •  Si  1'ceuvre  du  Poete 
est  un  miroir  dans  lequel  toute  la  Xature  vient  se  re- 
fleter  fidelement ;  si  en  lisant  ses  vers  nous  entendons 
le  bruissement  des  feuilles  des  arbres ;  si  la  tempete 
y  hurle,  si  les  passions  y  grondent  et  si  1* Amour  y 
soupire  ce  qu'il  a  de  plus  tendre  et  de  plus  delicat,  — ce 
poete  la,  son  nom  est  sur  toutes  les  levres;  c'est  Shake 
speare  !  Si  s'absorbant  dans  sa  contemplation  de  la 
Nature,  il  s'efforce  de  traduire  1'esprit  qui  s'en  degage, 
de  decouvrir  sous  TefTet  la  cause  qui  est  encore  plus 
belle,  ce  poete  c'est  Wordsworth  !  Si,  au  contraire, 
tournant  sa  vue  plus  particulieremeut  vers  Thornine, 
il  observe  ses  ridicules,  ses  travers,  ses  passions,  ses 
vices,  et  s'il  saisit  le  Protee  malgre  ses  iunombrables 
transformations,  ce  poete  c'est  Moliere  !  Cette  intui 
tion  puissante,  voila  ce  qui  fait  le  Poete  et  voila  ce 


94  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

qui  fait  qu'Emerson  est  un  poete.  "  Poetry,"  a  dit 
Lord  Bacou,  "  accommodates  the  shows  of  the  world 
to  the  desires  of  the  mind."  C'est  bien  la  la  definition 
qu'il  conviendrait  d'appliquer  a  sa  poesie,  c'est  du 
reste  celle  qu'il  donne  lui-meme  sous  une  autre 
forme,  lorsqu'il  dit :  "  C'est  1'expression  de  1'esprit 
parlant  d'apres  ce  qui  est  ideal  et  non  d'apres  ce  qui 
est  apparent." 

Mais  parmi  les  poetes  quelle  sera  la  place  d'Emer- 
son  ?  Parmi  les  premiers  et  les  plus  grands.  Sa 
podsie  est  de  celle  qui  se  confond  avec  la  religion 
elle-meme.  Seulement,  il  faut  s'entendre  sur  la 
valeur  des  mots.  Lorsqu'on  parle  d'Emerson,  il  est 
important  de  definir  ceux  qu'on  emploie  avec  la  plus 
graride  exactitude,  car  il  ne  tient  pas  cornpte  en  s'en 
servant  du  sens  que  1'habitude  a  faussement  pu  leur 
attribuer.  La  religion  est  le  sentiment  de  1'Infini, 
c'est  1'anie  s'elevant  vers  les  choses  qui  sont  invisibles 
et  e'ternelles,  c'est  le  sentiment  qui  s'empare  de  1'ame 
en  presence  du  double  probleme  de  notre  origine  et 
de  notre  destinee.  -  L'homme  religieux  est  celui  qui 
croit  qu'il  n'est  rien  dans  la  creation,  pas  meme 
1'atome  le  plus  petit,  qui  ne  soit  destine  a  servir  une 
fin  generale  et  universelle.  La  religion  nous  revele 
le  lien  subtil  qui  unit  toutes  choses.  Eien  n'est 
isole  dans  la  Nature,  tout  se  rattache  a  une  cause,  et 
la  cause  supreme  trouve  son  expression  dans  1'ordre 
moral  de  VUnivers.  Si  Ton  vient  m'objecter  que  ces 
vues  sont  tant  soit  peu  impregnees  de  mysticisme,  je 
dois  humblement  confesser  que  je  suis  incapable  de 


A  FRENCH   VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  95 

discerner  jusqu'a  quel  point  j'en  suis  coupable.  Je 
ne  suis  pas  assez  profondement  verse  dans  les  sys- 
temes  philosophiques  pour  savoir  ou  commence  et  oii 
finit  le  inysticisme.  Pour  moi  c'est  le  paroxysme  du 
sentiment  religieux,  c'est  1'extase  a  laquelle  1'ame 
arrive  par  la  contemplation  de  la  verite  morale ; 
mais,  s'il  y  a  du  danger  a  s'abandonner  a  1'exaltation 
de  ce  sentiment,  Emerson  n'y  tombe  pas ;  1'impor- 
tance  qu'il  attache  a  1'individualite  de  I'homme  Ten 
preserve.  Si  comme  on  1'a  dit  sa  tete  est  quelquefois 
entouree  de  nuages,  ses  pieds  sont  to uj ours  fortement 
plantes  sur  le  sol  et  ne  quittent  pas  la  terre.  • 

II  fait  de  sa  raison  1'emploi  le  plus  intrepide  et  le 
plus  actif,  et,  1' applique  sur  tous  les  objets  qui  en  sont 
dignes,  car,  non  seulement  son  esprit  est  religieux, 
mais  aussi  profondement  philosophique.  Ce  mot  de 
philosophe,  nous  ne  le  comprenons  pas  cependant  de 
la  meme  fa^on  que  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold ;  et,  nous 
n'avons  pas  de  peine  a  lui  accorder  qu'Emerson  n'a 
pas  ete  un  philosophe  ainsi  qu'il  1'entend.  Xon,  il 
n'a  pas  le  genie  constructif  des  Platon,  des  Kant,  des 
Spinosa,  mais,  est-ce  bien  le  genie  constructif  de  ces 
grands  homines  qui  leur  a  gagne  notre  admiration  ? 
Pour  ma  part,  je  croirai  plutut  que  la  place  qu'ils  ont 
su  conquerir  parmi  les  maitres  de  la  pensee  humaine, 
ils  la  doivent  non  pas  a  leurs  constructions,  plus  ou 
moiiis  en  mines  aujourd'hui ;  mais  a  la  beaute  de 
leurs  idees,  a  leur  profoncleur,  a  1'impulsion  feconde 
qu'ils  ont  donne  a  1'esprit  humain.  Si  le  genie  con 
structif  est  la  condition  sine  qyA  non  du  philosophe, 


96  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

il  nous  faut  abandonner  ce  titre  pour  Emerson  ;  mais 
que  nous  1'appellions  le  Penseur,  le  Sage,  le  Prophete 
il  n'en  demeure  pas  moins  toujours  le  meme  pour 
nous.  Mais  pourquoi,  apres  tout,  renoncer  a  ce  mot 
de  philosophe  ?  il  est  trop  beau  pour  ne  pas  le  con- 
server.  Emerson  est  "  an  endless  seeker  without  any 
past  at  his  back,"  mais  il  est  encore  quelque  chose  de 
plus  pour  nous,  et  nous  pouvons,  certes,  lui  appliquer 
la  definition  du  philosophe  que  Thoreau  a  faite ; 
"  To  be  a  philosopher  is  not  merely  to  have  sub 
tle  thoughts,  or  even  to  found  a  school,  but  so  to 
love  wisdom  as  to  live  according  to  its  dictates  a 
life  of  independence,  simplicity,  magnanimity,  and 
trust," 

Mais  apres  avoir  dit  qu'Emerson  e*tait  un  poete, 
il  semble,  pour  ainsi  dire,  oiseux  de  tant  insister  sur 
ses  tendances  religieuses  et  philosophiques.  Ce  mot 
poete  dit  tout ;  car,  dans  ma  pensee,  un  poete  doit  etre 
necessairement  un  homme  religieux  et  un  philosophe. 
La  philosophic  est  le  sol  fertile,  ou  la  plante  poetique 
prendra  fortement  racine.  II  n'y  a  pas  d'incompati- 
bilite,  1'une  n'exclut  pas  1'autre.  Le  soleil,  qui  va 
chercher  j  usque  dans  les  entrailles  de  la  terre  les 
semences  pour  les  fe*conder,  est  aussi  le  peintre  ad 
mirable  qui  donne  aux  fleurs  leur  splendide  eclat. 

Si  apres  avoir  essaye  de  definir  le  Poete,  nous  essay- 
ons  de  pe'netrer  plus  profondement  dans  son  oeuvre,  si 
nous  fixons  notre  attention  sur  ses  idees,  nous  pouvons 
Jeter  sur  elles  un  rapide  coup  d'ceil  en  les  groupant 
autour  des  trois  points  principaux  qui  contiennent 


A  FRENCH  VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  97 

tout  ce  qu'il  est  important  pour  1'homme  de  con- 
naitre.  Dieu,  la  Nature  et  1'homme,  voila  le  fonds 
eternel  de  toute  speculation  humaine. 

Et  d'abord  pour  conimencer  par  Dieu,  il  me  semble 
que  toute  1'ceuvre  d'Emerson  peut  se  concentrer,  se 
resurner  dans  ce  seul  mot ;  c'est  la  ce  point  central  vers 
lequel  tout  converge,  duquel  tout  rayonne.  Quelque 
soit  le  sujet  qu'Einerson  traite,  quelque  soit  la  position 
qu'il  occupe  sur  la  circonference,  nous  sonimes  surs 
qu'il  suivra  toujours  le  rayon  qui  le  ramenera  infail- 
liblement  au  Centre.  Dieu  est  tout,  il  est  dans  tout 
et  partout.  Emerson  n'est  pas  un  metaphysicien 
et  par  consequent  nous  n'avons  pas  a  approfondir  ses 
vues  sur  la  nature  de  Dieu.  Croit-il  a  la  personalite 
de  Dieu  ?  Ses  affirmations  sont  assez  larges  pour 
qu'on  puisse  leur  donner  la  signification  qu'ou  est 
porte  a  accepter :  "  Self-existence  is  the  attribute  of 
the  Supreme  Being."  Ainsi  que  1'a  fait  remarquer 
Mr.  G.  W.  Cooke,  il  serait  tres  injuste  de  limiter 
1'idee  qu'Emerson  a  de  la  divinite  a  ce  qu'il  a  dit  sur 
Dieu.  L'idee  qu'il  a  de  1'ame  repose  sur  celle  qu'il 
a  de  Dieu,  et  il  ne  separe  pas  un  seul  instant  ces 
deux  idees.  Sa  conception  de  1'ame  necessite  la 
croyance  dans  1'existence  de  Dieu  comme  une  Intel 
ligence  supreme.  Une  ame  qui  pense  ne  peut  avoir 
rien  de  commun  avec  une  Essence  qui  ne  pense  pas ; 
une  ame  qui  a  confiance  en  elle-meme  ne  peut  pas 
s'absorber  dans  un  Ocean  de  vie,  mais  le  secret  de  sa 
force  est  dans  sa  parfaite  harmonie  avec  un  principe 
libre  et  intelligent  comme  elle-meme. 

7 


98  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

La  Nature  est  le  symbole  de  1'Esprit  Universel, 
c'est  1'ceuvre  de  Dieu,  et  ses  apparences  n'ont  de 
realite  qu'en  lui.  Ici  nous  nous  trouvoris  en  pre 
sence  des  critiques  que  Ton  prodigue  a  1'idealisme. 
L'homme  sensuel  qui  retient  avec  force  les  choses 
dont  il  tire  ses  jouissances,  traitera  de  fou  celui  qui 
voudra  lui  faire  croire  que  ces  choses  ne  sont 
qu'  apparentes.  Neanmoins,  tout  ce  que  nous  voyons, 
tout  ce  que  nous  sentons,  tout  ce  qui,  en  un  mot, 
nous  tombe  sous  les  sens,  ne  sont  que  des  accidents. 
Ce  qui  n'est  pas  accidental,  mais  absolu  et  necessaire, 
c'est  1'Esprit  qui  a  cree  tout  cela.  Nous  n'entendons 
pas  cependant  par  la  transformer  le  monde  exterieur 
en  une  vaste  fantasmagorie,  ni  changer  la  vie  en  une 
hallucination,  mais  nous  affirmons  que  notre  certi 
tude  de  la  realite  de  1'existence  des  phenomenes 
exterieurs  est  basee  sur  un  temoignage  plus  serieux 
que  celui  des  sens  :  "  The  Universe,"  dit  Emerson, 
"is  the  externization  of  the  soul.  .  .  .  The  world  is 
mind  precipitated,  the  volatile  essence  is  forever  es 
caping  again  into  the  state  of  free  thought.  Hence 
the  pungency  and  virtue  of  every  natural  object  on 
the  mind.  Man  imprisoned,  man  crystallized  speaks 
to  man  impersonated."  Non  certes  nous  ne  voulons 
pas  jeter  des  pierres  a  cette  mere  si  belle,  nous  ne 
voulons  salir  et  souiller  le  doux  nid  qui  nous  abrite. 
L' amour  de  la  Nature  est  un  des  traits  les  plus  carac- 
teristiques  d'Emerson,  il  se  revele  avec  force  dans 
toutes  ses  ceuvres ;  mais  dans  aucun  de  ses  ecrits,  ce 
sentiment  n'est  aussi  vif  que  dans  "Nature."  En 


A  FRENCH   VIEW   OF  EMERSON.  99 

lisant  ce  livre,  il  me  semble  que  j'assiste  an  spectacle 
de  1'aurore.  Je  sens  mon  front  caresse  par  la  brise 
matinale,  je  vois  le  soleil  commence!  a  clarder  ses 
premiers  rayons  et  les  legers  nuages  qui  flottent  a 
1'horizon  s'empourprer  dans  1'immensite  claire.  Je 
me  laisse  entrainer  par  1'enthousiasme  du  poe'te,  car 
e'est  un  vrai  chant  qui  resonne  a  mes  oreilles  ;  et, 
parfois  me  me  je  crois  saisir  de  vrais  accents  de 
passion. 

Si  la  Nature  est  la  contre-partie  de  1'ame,  son  but 
est  evidemment  de  servir  a  1'education  et  aux  besoins 
de  1'homme.  Emerson  renferme  les  differents  services 
qu'elle  pent  nous  rendre  dans  les  differentes  categories 
de  Commoclite,  de  Beaute,  de  Laugage  et  de  Disci 
pline.  Ce  qu'il  dit  du  Laugage  m'interesse  particu- 
lierement,  d'autant  plus  que  j'y  trouve  la  definition 
de  sa  poesie  elle-meme,  —  definition  qui  peut  se  for- 
muler  aiusi :  "  La  Poesie  est  1'expression  d'un  fait 
spirituel  par  un  symbols  naturel."  Le  Poete  prend 
possession  de  la  Nature  toute  entiere  et  s'en  sert  pour 
exprimer  ses  pensees.  II  donne  une  voix  a  toute 
creature  et  fait  de  l'univers  une  immense  trope : 
" L'imagination,"  dit  Emerson,  "peut  etre  definie  Tusage 
que  la  raison  fait  du  moncle  exterieur,"  et,  comrne 
exemple,  il  cite  Shakespeare  ;  il  parle  de  ses  merveil- 
leux  Sonnets  avec  un  enthousiasme  entrainant ;  mais 
ce  qu'il  dit  de  Shakespeare  peut  s'appliquer  aussi  a 
lui-meme.  La  poesie  d'Emerson  c'est  vraiment  la 
Nature  traduite  en  pensee  ;  il  a  fait  entrer  dans  sa 
trame  le  brin  de  paille  que  1'hirondelle  avait  dans 


100  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

son  bee,  son  livre  est  pai-fume*  de  1'odeur  des  pins,  sa 
voix  est  aussi  douce  que  le  fremissement  des  gerbes 
d'epis,  et  que  le  murmure  des  ruisseaux  qui  coulent 
sous  1'herbe. 

A  1'oeil  percent  du  poete  une  loi  de  progres  se 
manifests  dans  cette  belle  Nature  qu'il  con  temple  et 
il  suit  le  mouvement  ascensionnel  dans  1'echelle  des 
etres : 

"  A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings  ; 
The  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose  ; 
And  striving  to  be  man  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  spires  of  form." 

L'homme !  voila  done  le  dernier  anneau  de  la 
chain  e,  le  couronnement  de  1'ceuvre,  le  roi  de  la 
creation.  L'homme,  c'est  la  matiere  arrivee  au  point 
ou  elle  a  conscience  de  son  existence.  L'homme  a 
nn  ame ;  et  cette  ame  est  I'etincelle  divine  qui  vient 
du  foyer  central.  L'ame  c'est  Dieu  dans  Thomme  ;  et 
Dieu  est  1'etre  ou  s'unissent  toutes  les  individuality's. 
II  n'y  a  pas  de  mouvements  lyriques  comparables  a 
ceux  d'Emerson  lorsqu'il  parle  de  cette  unite  et  de 
cette  identite  de  Tame  humaine :  "  This  central  fire 
which,  beaming  out  of  the  lips  of  Etna,  lightens  the 
capes  of  Sicily ;  and  naming  now  out  of  the  throat 
of  Vesuvius,  illuminates  the  towers  and  vineyards  of 
Naples.  It  is  one  light  which  beams  out  of  a  thou 
sand  stars ;  it  is  one  soul  which  animates  all  men." 
De  cette  haute  conception  de  ce  qui  constitue  notre 


A  FRENCH  VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  101 

individuality  Emerson  fait  decouler  la  premiere 
regie  sur  laquelle  il  edifiera  sa  morale.  Sonore  et 
per^ante  comme  la  note  clu  clairon,  il  lance  cette 
phrase,  "  Trust  thyself,  every  heart  vibrates  to  that 
iron  string." 

Mais  cette  confiance  en  nous-memes,  pour  en  jouir 
il  faut  que  nous  fassions  le  sacrifice  de  tout  ce  que 
nous  avons  de  personnel  et  d'egoiste  en  nous.  Pour 
que  nous  puissions  compter  sur  nous-memes,  il  est 
necessaire  que  nous  ayons  d'abord  pleine  et  entiere 
confiance  dans  les  e'ternelles  lois  de  1'Univers. 

"  Les  eternelles  lois,  comme  un  fleuve  puissant, 
Poursuivent  lentement  leur  cours  irresistible  ; 
Rien  ne  pent  resister  a  ce  flot  qui  descend 
Dont  1'oeil  ne  saisit  pas  le  flux  imperceptible. 

"  Notre  barque,  flottant  sur  cette  onde  paisible, 
Profite  de  leur  force  en  y  obeissant, 
Ease  le  sein  des  eaux  et  glisse  en  s'y  bercant, 
Se  laissaut  entrainer  par  uu  guide  invisible. 

"  Nous  n'avons  pas  besoin  d'un  incessant  travail ; 
La  voile  peut  tomber  et  la  rame  etre  oisive, 
S'il  est  bien  dirige,  1'esquif  au  port  arrive. 

"  Mais  il  faut  fermement  tenir  le  gouvernail, 
Et  surtout  se  garder  d'aller  en  sens  inverse  ; 
Car  alors  en  passant  la  vague  nous  ren verse." 

C'est  notre  obeissance  a  ces  lois  qui  setile  peut  nous 
rend  re  forts.  "Lorsqu'un  homme/'  dit  Emerson,  "tra- 
vaille  dans  la  direction  clu  Bien  ;  il  est  aide  par  toutes 
les  forces  de  1'Univers.  Ce  sont  ces  lois  immuables, 


102  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

c'est  cet  ordre  eternel  des  choses  que  les  homines 
accusent  dans  leur  folie.  C'est  ce  meme  Pouvoir 
bienfaisant  qu'ils  appellent  Eatalite,  lorsqu'ils  se 
sentent  blesses  pour  avoir  tente  de  le  violer."  " '  Tis 
weak  and  vicious  people  who  cast  the  blame  on  Fate ; 
the  right  use  of  Fate  is  to  bring  up  our  actions  to 
the  loftiness  of  Nature.  Eude  and  invincible,  except 
by  themselves,  are  the  elements ;  so  let  man  be, 
let  him  empty  his  breast  of  his  windy  conceits  and 
show  his  lordship  by  manners  and  deeds  on  the  scale 
of  Nature.  A  man  should  compare  advantageously 
with  an  oak,  a  river,  or  a  mountain." 

"  Autour  de  toi,  le  rocher,  1'arbre, 
Le  granit  et  le  bloc  de  marbre, 
Obeissent  tons  a  la  loi ; 
Et  tout  te  repete  sans  cesse 
Que  tu  dois  faire  avec  sagesse 
Ce  qu'ils  font  sans  savoir  pourquoi. 

"  Ces  vastes  mers  et  ces  montagnes, 
Ces  larges  fleuves  et  ces  campagnes, 
Tout  cela  n'appartient  qu'a  toi  ; 
Et  tu  fais  croitre  ta  puissance 
Par  ta  sublime  obeissance 
Au  grand  Pouvoir  qui  t'a  fait  roi  !  " 

Cette  confiance  que  nons  devons  avoir  en  nous- 
in  ernes,  c'est  la  vertu  mere  de  toutes  les  autres,  c'est 
le  principe  fecond  qui  nous  fera  nous  retrouver  nous- 
m ernes.  II  changera  la  face  de  notre  religion,  de 
notre  politique,  de  notre  literature.  Nous  ne  serons 
plus  des  imitateurs,  mais  nous  oserons  etre  nous- 


A  FRENCH   VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  103 

memes.  Xous  ne  nous  contenterons  pas  d'une  admi 
ration  sterile  pour  les  ceuvres  du  passe ;  mais  nous 
essaierons  nous  aussi  de  les  egaler  et  de  les  surpasser. 
Le  sens  d'independance  spirituelle,  d'apres  Emerson, 
est  comme  cet  admirable  vernis  de  la  rosee  ;  grace 
auquel  cette  vieille  terre  et  toutes  ses  productions 
so nt  rendues  chaque  matin  nouvelles  et  brillantes 
sous  la  derniere  touche  de  1'artiste.  Non,  nous  ne 
nous  laisserons  pas  decourager  par  les  gloires  du 
passe.  Les  grands  hommes  qui  nous  ont  precede 
nous  les  considererons  comme  des  plongeurs  heureux 
dans  cet  Ocean,  dont  le  fond  est  encore  pave  de  perles 
dont  nous  pouvons  nous  emparer. 

"  Oui,  d'autres  out  plonge  dans  cette  mer  profonde, 
Us  sont  alles  chercher  la  perTe  au  fond  de  1'onde  ; 
Quand  ils  sont  revenus,  ils  1'avaient  a  la  main  ; 
Mais,  1' ocean  toujours  en  tresors  abonde, 
C'est  a  nous  de  chercher  a  depouiller  son  sein, 
Ceux  qui  le  tenteront,  n'essaieront  pas  en  vain." 

Comment  Emerson  se  sert-il  de  ses  idees ;  ou,  en 
d'autres  termes  ;  quelle  est  sa  rnethode  ?  Je  pro- 
nonce  la  un  mot  qui  sonne  etrangement  quand  on 
parle  d'Emerson ;  il  est  generalement  pris  dans  une 
acception  si  pedant  esque  qu'il  est  vraiment  dange- 
reux  de  Temployer.  La  methods  d'Emerson  est 
toute  poetique.  II  y  a  une  phrase  de  Montaigne, 
que  du  reste  Emerson  s'est  appropriee,  et  qui 
exprime  admirablement  ce  que  j'ai  dans  la  pensee. 
"  Les  abeilles,"  dit  Montaigne,  "  qui  pillotent  de  ci, 
de  la,  font  le  miel  qui  est  tout  leur  ;  ce  n'est  plus  ni 


104  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

thym  ni  marjolaine."  Le  poete  est  cette  abeille; 
tout  dans  1'homme  et  dans  la  Nature  1'attire,  et  le  miel 
qu'il  en  distille  est  sa  pensee.  Pen  importe  le  sujet 
qu'il  prend,  il  en  fera  tou jours  sortir  la  grande  legon. 
Comme  Wordsworth  il  pourrait  dire  aussi :  — 

"  To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears."  • 

Qui  ne  connait  ces  vers  charmants  au  Rhodora  ? 

En  Mai  lorsque  des  vents  les  soufles  sont  moins  rudes, 

Je  vis  le  Rhodora  parer  nos  solitudes  ; 

II  etalait  ses  fleurs  tremblarites  sur  les  eaux 

Pour  charmer  le  desert,  1'onde  entre  les  roseaux 

Ses  petales  flottaient  eclat-antes  et  belles 

Sur  le  sombre  ruisseau  qu'egayait  sa  beaute  ; 

Le  cardinal  cut  pji,  tout  pale  a  son  cote, 

Pour  courtiser  la  fleur  venir  baigner  ses  ailes. 

Rhodora  !  les  sages  demanderont  pourquoi 

Ce  charm e  sur  la  terre  est  gaspille  par  toi  ? 

Reponds  :  que  si  pour  voir,  1'ceil  s'ouvre  a  la  lurniere, 

D'etre  aussi,  la  beaute,  s' excuse  a  sa  maniere. 

Si  de  te  voir  ici  mon  ame  s'etonna 

Je  n'ai  rien  demande  rivale  de  la  rose  ; 

Car  dans  mon  ignorance  humblement  je  suppose 

Que  le  memo  Pouvoir  qui  t'y  mit,  m'y  mena. 

Eien  n'est  trop  petit,  rien  n'est  indigne  de  fixer  la 
pensee  du  poete,  car  tout  aboutit  au  meme  but ;  tout 
aussi  emane  de  la  meme  cause  ;  c'est  toujours  la  meme 
essence  qui  recoit  les  differents  noms  d' Amour,  de 
Justice,  de  Temperance,  de  meme  que  cet  immense 
ocean  qui  change  de  noms  sur  les  differents  rivages 
qu'il  baigne. 


A  FRENCH   VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  105 

Cette  consideration  de  la  methode  d'Emerson 
m'amene  naturellement  a  parler  de  son  style.  Mr. 
John  Burroughs  dans  un  article  insere  dans  le  Cen 
tury  d'Avril  dernier,  dit  que  les  grands  ecrivains  ont 
deux  faqons  d'exhiber  leur  style,  dans  la  conception 
et  le  dessein,  aussi  par  le  fini  et  le  traitement.  II 
reconnait  qu'Emerson  pusseds  la  seconde  qualite 
dans  toute  son  etendue  et  que  rien  n'est  compara 
ble  a  la  perfection  de  sa  phrase,  niais  il  semble  con- 
clure  que  la  premiere  qualite  lui  fait  defaut.  Ce 
n'est  pas  mon  avis ;  si  je  ne  vais  pas  jusqu'a  trouver 
chez  Emerson  une  conception  et  un  dessein  comme 
dans  rceuvre  d'un  peintre  on  d'un  compositeur,  j'y 
decouvre  une  unite  reelle  qui  est  plus  profonde  encore, 
et  qui  vient  de  la  tendance  uniforms  et  constants  de  ses 
pensees,  une  unite  de  but,  si  je  puis  m'exprimer  ainsi. 

Mr.  Burroughs  a  ete  plus  heureux  lorsqu'il  applique 
a  Emerson  la  fameuse  phrase  de  Ste.  Beuve,  qui  parle 
du  grands  poete,  non  pas  comme  de  celui  qui  a  le 
mieux  fait  au  point  de  vue  de  la  perfection  acade- 
mique ;  mais  de  celui  qui  suggere  le  plus,  qui  excite, 
feconde,  vous  laisse  beaucoup  a  deviner  et  a  completer. 
C'est  ce  que  fait  Emerson.  A  ceux  qui  disent  ne  pas 
le  comprendre,  il  a  lui-meme  repondu  d'avance  :  — 

"  0  mortal !  thy  ears  are  stones, 
These  echoes  are  laden  with  tones 
"\Vhieh  only  the  pure  can  hear. 
Thou  canst  not  catch  what  they  recite 
Of  Will  and  Fate,  of  Want  and  Right, 
Of  man  to  come,  of  human  life, 
Of  death  and  fortune,  growth  and  strife." 


106  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Emerson  est  un  Beformateur ;  le  colonel  Higgin- 
son  a  ce  propos  1'a  fait  remarquer.  Nul  n'a  une  physi- 
onomie  aussi  marquee  que  lui  a  cet  egard.  ;  II  est 
arrive  en  efi'et  que  des  homines  out  fait  des  revolu 
tions  dans  la  litterature  ou  dans  la  vie,  sans  d'abord 
se  rendre  bien  compte  du  resultat  qu'ils  allaient 
atteindre.  Emerson  des  ses  premiers  pas  avait  au  con- 
traire  pris  1'attitude  qu'il  devait  toujours  garder  et 
dont  il  n'a  jamais  devie.  Qu'on  relise  les  premieres 
lignes  de  "  Nature  ; "  il  est  impossible  d'affi rmer  plus 
nettement  ses  intentions  reforinatrices. 

La  sanction  des  enseignements  d'Emerson  est  dans 
sa  vie,  qui  presente  un  rare  exemple  d'unite  et  de  con 
sistence.  Jarnais  une  vie  n'a  servi  de  commentaire 
aussi  eclatant  aux  ecrits  d'un  homme.  Que  Ton 
compare  le  ton  de  1'Adresse  devaut  le  Divinity  Col 
lege  en  1838,  avec  celle  qui  est  intitulee  "  Progress  of 
Culture."  Quelle  hardiesse  dans  la  premiere  !  quelle 
serenite  dans  la  seconde  !  C'est  que  dans  le  long 
espace  de  temps  qui  s'e*tait  ecoule  entre  elles,  bien 
des  evenements  etaient  survenus,  et,  que  leurs  re- 
sultats  avaient  plus  que  jamais  augmente  sa  foi  dans 
riiuinanite.  II  avait  assiste  a  la  grande  crise  que  son 
pays  avait  traverse.  II  etait  fier  de  rheroisme  d'une 
nation  qui  s'etait  soulevee  toute  entiere  centre  la 
honte  de  Tesclavage.  C'est  avec  une  confiance  paisible 
qu'il  voyait  le  soleil  se  coucher  dans  un  ciel  sans 
images ;  et  que  dans  la  joie  de  son  coeur  il  s'ecriait : 
"  I  read  the  promise  of  happier  times  and  of  better 
men!"  • 


A  FRENCH  VIEW  OF  EMERSON.  107 

Emerson  est  un  Americain ;  il  Test  par  le  carac- 
tere  determine  et  hardi  de  sa  pensee,  par  les  graces 
particulieres  de  sa  forme.  II  fallal t  sans  doute  line 
terre  vierge  pour  nourir  cette  vigoureuse  plante ; 
une  individualite  aussi  puissante  que  la  sienne  ne 
pouvait  se  produire  qu'au  milieu  d'une  societe  qui 
permet  a  1'liomme  de  se  developper  en  pleiue  liberte 
et  de  tirer  de  ses  facultes  tous  les  secours  qu'il 
peut  en  attendre.  Ce  sera,  Mesdames  et  Messieurs, 
reternel  bonneur  de  votre  pays,  d'avoir  merite'  ce 
grand  homme,  Puisse-t-il  en  produire  d'autres  sem- 
blables  a  lui !  Puissent  leurs  voix  puissantes  nous 
arreter  sur  les  pentes  glissantes  ou  nous  roulons. 
Puissent-ils  nous  aider  a  nous  retrouver  nous- 
memes,  en  augmentant  notre  foi  dans  la  liberte 
de  la  volonte,  notre  respect  pour  la  personalite 
hunmine. 

J'ai  parle  d'un  poe'te,  et,  j'ai  conscience,  helas ! 
d'etre  reste  bien  au-dessous  du  sujet  que  j'avais  a 
traiter ;  mais  j'aurais,  en  passant  du  moins,  laisse 
tomber  ma  modeste  couronne  aux  pieds  de  sa 
blanche  statue. 

Penseur  !  en  te  lisant  j'apprends  a  me  connaitre, 

Et  je  deviens  moi-meme,  en  ecoutant  ta  voix  ; 

Tu  paries  comme  un  homme  et  non  pas  comme  un  maitre, 

Car  tu  veux  simplement  montrer  ce  que  tu  vois. 

L'Univers  est  regi  par  d'eternelles  lois, 

II  faut  que  I'homme  accepte  et  sache  se  soumettre  ; 

Mais  il  augmente  aiusi  la  force  de  son  etre, 

II  grandit,  s'il  s'incline  en  se  disant :    "  Je  dois!  " 


108  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

On  t'appelle  ecrivain,  philosophe  ou  poete, 

Mais  de  1'homme  pour  moi  tu  fus  le  vrai  prophete, 

Et  je  te  nornmerai  mon  guide  et  mon  sauveur. 

Car  tu  m'as  eclaire  d'une  vive  lumiere. 

Grace  a  toi,  je  suis  fort  pour  fournir  ma  carriere  ; 

Mon  co3ur  s'est  ennamnie  de  ta  noble  ferveur. 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  109 


V. 

EMERSON'S    RELIGION. 

BY  REV.  C.  A.  BARTOL,  D.D. 

ARTISTS  sometimes  paint  their  own  portraits.  In 
describing  Emerson's  religion  I  shall  make  him,  as 
far  as  possible,  sit,  not  to  me,  but  to  himself.  The 
soul  is  shy  in  its  devotions.  It  enters  the  closet 
and  shuts  the  door.  What  I  worship  is  my  secret, 
says  Rubinstein.  To  knowr  a  man's  religion,  we 
must  surprise  him  on  his  knees ;  and  that  is  an 
intrusion  and  offence.  George  Washington,  whose 
nature  had  but  a  tropical  calm,  being  interrupted  at 
his  prayers  by  an  importunate  knocking  at  his  cham 
ber,  arose,  and,  putting  at  once  wrath  for  humility, 
thrust  his  sword  through  the  panel  of  the  door. 

That  Emerson,  though  no  such  volcano,  —  rather  a 
cool  observer  and  unimpassioned  saint,  —  was  a  pious 
man,  and  that  religion  was  a  feeling  raised  in  him  to 
the  highest  power,  was  proved  to  me  by  the  rapture 
in  his  look  after  a  service  in  his  house  nearly  half  a 
century  ago. 

"  His  eyes  let  out  more  light  than  they  took  in  ; 
They  told  not  when,  but  did  the  day  begin/' 


110  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Such  light,  as  Wordsworth  says,  "  never  was  on  sea 
or  land."  Yet  Emerson  broke  with  the  organized  re 
ligion  of  the  Church,  not  on  a  point  of  faith,  but 
of  form.  A  born  idealist,  carrying  or  carried  by  his 
idealism  sometimes  to  excess,  offended  by  the  dea 
cons'  creaking  boots  as  they  bore  around  the  con 
secrated  elements  in  their  hands,  he  forswore  his 
clerical  part  in  that  particular  ceremony  as  unsuited 
to  the  Occidental  mind,  and  proposed  a  change  in  the 
administration  of  the  Lord's  Supper;  which  his  parish 
not  accepting,  he  resigned  his  place,  parting  with  grief 
from  his  flock.  Many  years  after,  when,  on  a  differ 
ent  issue,  of  removing  between  church  and  congrega 
tion  the  sacramental  line,  I  was  ready  to  leave  my 
post,  he  advised  me  to  remain,  and  reform  from  the 
inside ;  and  he  spoke  then  to  me  of  his  own  pain  in 
the  rupture  of  the  pastoral  tie.  At  one  time  he 
queried  if  Christianity  were  a  blessing.  By  triangu 
lating  the  points  of  his  early  experience  we  may 
measure  his  position.  The  business  of  the  pulpit, 
function  of  the  preacher,  he  never  decried.  When 
Dr.  Bellows  congratulated  him  on  his  independence 
as  a  free  lance,  he  replied,  "If  there  be  a  load  to 
draw,  a  harness  is  a  good  thing."  He  had  but 
slipped  from  an  unfit  tackle :  — 

"  Why  should  the  vest  on  him  allure, 
Which  I  could  not  on  me  endure  ? " 

Yet  not  with  the  investiture  did  he  confound  the 
thing.  "  Let  us  converse  aside,"  he  said  to  me,  when 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  Ill 

I  differed  from  him  about  the  person  of  Christ. 
Doubtless  he  swuDg  from  and  then  back  to  Chris 
tianity,  but  never  quite  away  ;  as  the  magnetic 
meridian  cannot  forsake,  but  leaves  and  returns  to 
the  pole,  —  is  now  returning,  astronomers  say. 

"  One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  hath  never  lost." 

What  treatise  on  Scripture  inspiration  or  apostolic 
succession  are  not  these  lines  more  than  worth  ? 
The  critic  of  Emerson  has  a  hard  time,  finding  that 
Emerson  is  always  beforehand  in  his  trade,  and  always 
criticises  and  answers  himself.  We  can  read  but  one 
face  of  the  coin  at  a  time,  and  he  never  forgets  to 
turn  it  over.  Father  Taylor  wanted  to  navigate,  he 
said,  on  the  edge  of  the  pit.  Emerson's  ship  tacks 
close  to  the  reef,  and  zigzags  into  port.  He  flouts  the 
ritual,  and  gives  it  its  revenge:  "A  whole  popedom 
of  forms  one  pulsation  of  virtue  can  uplift  and 
vivify."  There  are  two  oxen  always  in  his  team,  and 
the  farther  they  strain  apart  the  surer  and  stronger 
they  pull.  He  is  an  optimist,  extravagant  to  declare 
the  brothel  or  gallows  a  step  upwards. 

"  Yet  spake  yon  purple  mountain, 

Yet  said  yon  ancient  wood, 
That  night  or  day,  that  love  or  crime, 
Sends  all  men  to  the  good." 

But  shall  slavery  escape  his  lash  ?  Does  he  not  see 
every  drop  of  Mr.  Webster's  blood  point  down  ?  Is 
he  charged  with  inconsistency,  he  pleads  sincerity. 


112  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

As  an  expert  marksman  hits  and  flattens  in  the  tar 
get  his  first  bullet  with  a  second,  so  he  makes  his 
sentences  each  other's  butt,  the  spirit  of  truth  always 
the  aim.  He  claims  a  first  hand  with  Deity,  and 
says,  "  Off,  ye  landings  ! "  to  traditions. 

"  By  God,  I  will  not  be  an  owl, 
But  sun  me  in  the  capitol." 

Yet  he  bows  to  the  majestic  and  venerable  institu 
tion  that  hands  down  revelations  from  age  to  age. 
Still,  he  asks,  "  Why  not  have  an  original  relation  to 
Nature,  our  own  works  and  words,  and  worship  ? " 

He  is  an  immigrant  from  some  other  land,  like 
David ;  a  pilgrim  and  stranger  on  the  earth,  like  Paul, 
coining  from  and  seeking  a  city  foreign  to  this  world, 
where  lie  is  not  quite  naturalized  and  at  home.  As 
a  vessel  touches  at  Bermuda  or  the  Azores,  he  is  a 
visitor  who  must  weigh  anchor  and  cannot  stay;  and 
this  posture  or  aspect  is  the  expression  of  that  sense 
of  the  Infinite  in  which,  more  than  in  any  feeling  of 
dependence,  or  owning  of  obligation,  or  reading  of 
Nature's  volume  between  the  lines,  or  effort  at  per 
sonal  perfection,  or  otherwise  defined  mood  of  mind 
or  condition  of  life,  religion  consists.  He  interro 
gates  all  observances  and  creeds,  bids  them  report  at 
he  ad -quarters  of  the  intellect;  will  see  and  judge  for 
himself,  and  not  look  through  others'  spectacles.  The 
divine  personality  he  doubts,  but  leaves  his  specu 
lation,  like  Joseph's  coat,  in  the  hands  of  the  har 
lot  when  he  prays.  To  Mr.  Arnold's  "  Power  not 


EMERSOVS  RELIGION.  113 

ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness,"  he  would  say, 
"Is  it  not  OUT  self  ?" 

"  Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free." 

The  boundary  line  or  stone  betwixt  man  and  his 
Maker,  he  thinks,  was  never  found.  He  can  scarce 
say  T/wu  to  Him  of  whom  he  is  part.  Seven  genera 
tions  in  him  of  ministerial  blood  have  so  lifted  and 
refined  his  thought,  that  he  cannot  rush  rashly  into  the 
Great  Presence,  or  pray  to  order  at  a  set  time  in  a  set 
place.  His  installation  in  New  Bedford  was  stopped 
by  his  request  to  the  committee  that  the  public 
prayers  should  be  optional.  He  offered  prayer  in 
the  Divinity  School  Chapel  before  his  Address.  But 
it  was  impersonal,  —  to  Infinite  Wisdom  and  Good 
ness  to  grant  light  to  our  lowliness,  —  as  I  still 
remember  the  terms  which  I  heard,  and  which  a  rev 
erend  brother  at  the  time,  loving  him,  yet  pronounced 
to  be  no  prayer.  But  it  was  an  articulation,  for  a 
moment,  of  the  prayer  without  ceasing  in  a  loyal 
heart,  a  continuation  of  what  had  begun  or  been 
eternal, 

"  Or  ever  the  wild  Time  coined  itself 
Into  calendar  months  and  days." 

Every  man  of  ideas,  identified  with  principles  which 
are  everlasting,  seems  to  us  and  to  himself  to  have 
pre-existed,  as  Plato  says,  and  been  loved,  like  Jesus, 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world.  Emerson  says 
he  knows  not  whether  these  thoughts,  which  so  ani 
mate  and  exercise  him,  will  house  again  in  just  such 

8 


114  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

a  frame,  only  that  they  cannot  be  sick  with  any  sick 
ness,  or  die  any  death.  He  is  not  an  accredited  rep 
resentative  of,  nor  a  seceder  from,  the  Church  which 
first  suckled  and  at  last  sucked  him  back ;  but  he 
insisted  to  the  last  his  name  should  be  on  her  books. 
He  said,  as  the  Master  bids,  Yea,  yea,  as  well  as  Nay. 
nay;  but  his  Yes  was  more  than  his  No.  Aliquando 
Ecclesia  in  exiguis.  "  Sometimes  the  Church  is  com 
posed  of  the  smallest  number  of  persons,"  says  an 
ancient  father.  It  may  be,  as  avers  the  Apostle,  in 
a  house,  or,  let  us  add,  in  one  breast  full  of  saintly 
company,  like  Channing's,  standing  for  the  dignity 
of  human  nature;  or  Garrison's  answering,  when  re 
proached  with  not  going  to  meeting,  that  he  some 
times  preached  to  himself.  ^Emerson,  when  he  felt 
and  celebrated  the  world-warming  spark, 

"  The  axis  of  the  star, 
The  sparkle  of  the  spar^" 

proclaimed  the  universal  divinity ;/ though  he  tells  us 
when  we  are  with  God  we  count  not  the  congregation, 

The  Muse  teaches  a  living  God. 

I 

"  Into  the  fifth  himself  he  flings, 
And  conscious  Law  is  King  of  kings." 

His  doctrine  of  the  access  of  the  Spirit  to  the  pri 
vate  soul  is  not  new,  but  very  old.  The  Montanists 
maintained  that  the  Holy  Ghost  had  not  spent  itself 
on  the  formulas  of  belief  and  worship  understood  and 
agreed  upon  in  the  society  of  the  faithful,  but  had 
left  some  things  still  to  be  said.  American  Emerson, 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  115 

like  the  French  Montaigne,  was  the  Roman  Mon- 
tanus  over  again.  Despite  Councils  of  Xice  and 
Chalcedon,  and  theological  triumphs  of  Saint  Angus- 
tine,  modern  history  demonstrates  the  indispensable 
additions  to  the  Hebrew  Bible,  without  which  all 
nations  would  still  be  subject  to  kings,  slaves  would 
cringe  under  their  masters'  whip,  women  would 
neither  bare  their  heads  nor  cut  their  hair,  nor  open 
their  mouths  save  to  husbands  at  home;  records 
would  be  put  for  truth,  the  killing  letter  for  the 
enlivening  spirit,  and  God  be  a  child  that  can 
not  find  his  tongue.  Discarding  Trinitarian  absurd 
ities,  Emerson  also  scores  the  pale  negations  of 
Unitarianism.  Whatever  part  of  the  so-called  Lib 
eral,  Radical,  Free  Religious  host  switches  off  into 
materialism  and  immorality,  leaving  the  main  track 
of  the  Transcendental  movement,  as  a  curve  on  the 
railway  at  length  reaches  the  opposite  point  of  the 
compass,  has  none  of  his  sympathy.  He  reverts  to 
his  ancestry.  The  old  Puritan  in  him  revives.  He 
greets  a  new  Orthodoxy  rather  than  any  liberty  of 
sin.  He  says,  "  A  little  Calvinism  does  not  hurt  the 
flavor  of  the  bread." 

Labor  is  respectable ;  and  this  man  is  a  working 
bee  in  the  hive,  not  a  self-indulging,  sensual,  honey- 
eating  drone.  When  one  praised  to  him  the  privi 
lege  of  vacation,  the  delicious  summer-rest,  he  said, 
"  That  poppy  grows  among  the  corn."  "  The  miller, 
like  the  poet,  is  a  lazy  man,  setting  his  wheel  in  the 
stream;"  but  his  watching  is  work.  The  poet  culti- 


116  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

vates  and  reaps,  not  with  plough  and  hoe,  scythe  or 
sickle. 

"  One  harvest  from  thy  field 

Homeward  brought  the  oxen  strong  ; 
A  second  crop  thine  acres  yield, 
"Which  I  gather  in  a  song." 

When  I  invited  him  once  as  a  guest,  he  said,  "I 
must  not  forsake  my  tasks."  All  the  sects  may  well 
waive  claim  of  property  in  a  man  so  human  and 
humane.  He  belongs  to  no  denomination,  but  to  the 
humanity  in  all.  When  the  German  poet  Schiller 
was  asked  why  he  subscribed  to  no  form  of  religious 
belief,  he  answered,  "  Because  I  am  so  religious." 
When  our  own  Olmsted,  of  the  Sanitary  Commis 
sion,  was  asked  why  he  absented  himself  from 
church,  he  replied,  "  Because  going  to  meeting  hurts 
my  religious  feelings."  Church  and  Saviour  were 
not  finalities  with  Emerson ;  and  the  Bible  was  to 
the  entire  revelation  no  more  than  are  the  wheat- 
grains  among  mummies  in  the  Pyramids  to  all  the 
harvests  of  the  world. 

Emerson  came  to  illustrate  and  verify  again  one 
of  the  great  texts  of  Holy  Writ  from  the  voice  of 
God  to  John  in  Patmos :  "  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let 
him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the  churches ; " 
and  if  not  one  of  the  seven  in  Asia  escaped  then,  why 
should  any  of  the  thousand  in  America  be  excused 
now  ?  The  prophet  must  not  cease  to  call  the  priest 
to  account.  He  does  not  break  the  idols,  but  puts 
them  out  of  the  way  or  exposes  their  deformity ;  and, 


RELIGION.  117 


though  he  loves  Nature,  he  makes  not,  with  some  of 
the  scientists,  a  huge  idol  of  her.  Rather  with  Plato 
he  sees  but  a  child's  picture-book  in  all  the  astron 
omy  ;  says  the  screen  is  too  thin  to  hide  the  cause,  — 
the  outward  universe  but  a  shining,  peaceful  appa 
rition  to  be  interrogated  ;  and  that  the  transport  of 
life  comes  when  this  vast  creation  reverently  with 
draws  before  its  Author.  None  more  than  Emerson 
has  lived  next-door  neighbor  to  truth.  "  Who  is  this 
that  turns  aside  into  the  thicket  from  the  throng  ?  " 
asks  Goethe  in  his  poem.  It  was  Moses  at  Mount 
Sinai,  Paul  in  Arabia,  Jesus  in  the  wilderness,  and 
Emerson  a  worshipper  in  the  woods. 

"And  when  I  am  stretched  beneath  the  pines, 
Where  the  evening  star  so  holy  shines, 
I  laugh  at  the  lore  and  the  pride  of  man, 
At  the  sophist  schools  and  the  learned  clan  ; 
For  what  are  they  all,  in  their  high  conceit, 
When  mail  in  the  bush  with  God  may  meet  ?" 

Organ  though  he  be  of  the  religious  sentiment, 
which  is  vocal  in  his  least  syllable  and  with  his  last 
tone,  Emerson  will  be  popular  only  with  a  class,  — 
the  finest  spirits,  a  sifted  audience  of  select  men  and 
women,  —  because  he  lacks  rush  and  passion,  does  not 
flame  or  flow,  llather  he  climbs  where  but  few  can 
fiud  footing  and  breath,  to  dilate  and  conspire  with 
the  morning  wind.  But  to  whoso  keeps  pace  with 
him  he  gives  confidence  and  peace,  a  feeling  that 
the  world  is  not  base  metal,  but  its  Maker,  as  the 
Persian  Omar  Khayam  says,  a  good  fellow.  Prayer, 


118  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Emerson  calls  the  soliloquy  of  a  beholding  and  jubi 
lant  soul ;  meaning  not  his  own  or  any  separate, 
but  that  one  all  are  part  of,  which,  as  Moses  said, 
takes  satisfaction  in  its  own  responsive  work  This 
participation  is  not  David's  prayer,  "  Cleanse  me 
with  hyssop,"  or  Luther's,  "  Thou  must  hear  me ; " 
but  Wordsworth's, — "  his  mind  a  thanksgiving  to  the 
Power  that  made  him."  Emerson  is  Adam  before  the 
Fall.  The  ground  is  not  cursed  for  his  sake  or  in  his 
view.  He  sees  no  warning  angel  with  flaming  sword 
turning  every  way  on  the  wall.  Thorns  and  briers 
fulfil  for  him  no  threat.  A  weed  is  but  a  plant 
whose  uses  have  not  been  discovered.  All  the  two 
hundred  thousand  conceal  virtue.  He  would  say, 
with  the  Stoics,  pain  of  child-birth  or  other  sort  is 
no  evil.  He  scouts  the  notion  of  doom.  The  poetry 
of  his  late  incompetent  critic,  Matthew  Arnold,  per 
fect  in  finish  and  classic  in  form,  is  devoid  of  cheer ; 
suggests  monumental  sculpture,  or  the  adorning  of  a 
tomb,  —  as  the  Eubayat  is  the  dogma  of  death  and 
splendid  mausoleum  of  human  hope.  Emerson's  lines 
are  an  emancipation  proclamation  set  to  music,  a 
resurrection  to  that  immortality  and  identity  he  told 
his  friend  Sanborn  he  held  to.  He  has  not  written 
a  verse  that  does  not  refresh  and  exhilarate.  (  He 
never  for  an  instant  panders  to  despondency  and 
despair.  If,  in  Henry  Vaughan's  figure,  such  a  bird 
sing  not  now  in  some  other  grove  out  of  mortal  sight, 
what  a  loss  in  Nature  !  )  What  is  the  use  ? !  Says 
Victor  Hugo, "  It  were  unfair  if  the  great  expectations 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  119 

of  a  child  be  not  met ;"  arid,  if  God  be  not  bankrupt, 
his  promissory  note  will  not  go  to  protest.^  Louis 
Agassiz  accounted  for  the  scientists'  neglect  of  the 
supernatural  by  their  being  tired,  and  too  much  ab 
sorbed  in  the  natural  even  to  consider  the  miracu 
lous  ;  and  Emerson,  in  the  early  flush  of  his  genius, 
was  so  conscious  of  the  life  that  is,  that  he  considered 
as  a  sort  of  peeping,  all  curiosity  about  that  to  come. 
But  he  was  just  to  the  subject  in  his  later  years ; 
the  key-hole  became  a  window ;  he  reverted  to  the 
ancient  faith  ;  God  and  heaven  were  bound  in  one 
volume  to  his  mind.  He  saw  how  evolution,  like 
phrenology,  deals  with  structure.  It  is  the  book  of 
Exodus,  not  Genesis.  Mind  from  matter  were  an 
effect  greater  than  the  cause.  Mind  from  mind  has 
a  warrant  against  dissolution  and  beyond  fate.  Re 
vering  the  law  of  duty,  he  did  not  resolve  religion 
into  morality,  but  spoke  of  it  as  the  sentiment.  An 
intelligence  like  his,  the  most  uncommitted  and  im 
partial  of  our  time,  deserves  for  its  judgment  great 
respect.  What,  indeed,  but  failure  can  wait  on  such 
a  fight  with  the  instinct  of  mankind  in  all  ages  and 
every  land,  as  the  attempt  to  reduce  religion  to  ethics, 
and  cut  the  blossom  from  the  root  ?  Whoever  has 
such  a  purpose,  it  will  spew  out  of  its  mouth.  We 
cannot  force  religion  on  another,  as  we  may  compel 
him  to  do  his  civil  duty.  v  We  may  have  no  image  in 
us  of  God  which  were  a  mental  idolatry.  But  the 
race  will  always  feel  and  hear  from  what  it  cannot 
comprehend.  In  vain  will  any  objector  brand  it  as 


120  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

unknowable  or  unknown.  (He  and  his  cargo  of  defi 
nitions  will  be  swamped  in  the  sea  of  glory  we  are 
full  of  and  float  in,  by  the  united,  inseparable  con 
stitution  of  things  with  the  soul.  }  Emerson's  place 
in  the  choir  of  this  hosanna  and  hallelujah  will  be 
his  crown. 

;  "But  why  not  do  something ? "  screams  Carlyle,  with 
a  voice  to  be  heard  across  the  Atlantic,  to  his  friend ; 
who  might  reply,  quoting  himself,  "  Is  not  a  thought 
the  ancestor  of  every  act  ? "  But  his  answer  is,  that 
music,  not  discord,  is  the  core  of  the  world,  and  an 
thems  better  and  truer  than  growls.  A  sad  woman 
spoke  to  her  legal  counsellor  of  the  hollowness  of  this 
life,  trusting  he  would  give  her  some  courage.  How 
her  heart  was  damped  as  with  a  wet  sheet,  as  he  ob 
served,  "  Well,  Madam,  all  the  same  let  us  keep  up 
the  sham."  So  much  talk  of  shams  from  the  Chelsea 
philosopher  not  only  dejects,  but  is  further  from  the 
fact  than  the  Concord  sage's  lesson  from  the  bee's 

"  Merry  breezy  bass." 
"  Leave  the  chaff,  and  take  the  wheat." 

The  American's  note  is  a  chant,  the  Englishman's  is 
prolonged  into  cant :  we  stumble  on  his  page. 

Emerson  practised  on  the  outcome  of  his  own  defi 
nition  of  religion,  —  to  do  and  suffer  all  for  others' 
sake.  Goethe  says  it  is  man's  business  -to  enact  hell 
on  the  earth.  But  in  a  drama  of  heaven  Emerson 
performed,  to  prove  that  what  is  morose  is  false.  He 
is  not  the  whole  manhood,  or  its  only  scribe.  He  is 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  121 

not  fond  of  the  night-side.  He  is  dainty,  and  lifts 
his  robe,  as  a  lady  does,  treading  through  the  mire. 
In  his  "English  Traits"  he  shuns  the  shame,  unlike 
those  Hebrew  scouts  of  old  charged  with  spying  out 
the  nakedness  of  the  land.  The  world-wide  poem 
of  "  Faust "  is  to  him  a  disagreeable  composition.  He 
would  walk  backward  to  throw  a  cover  on  indecency, 
like  Xoah's  sons.  His  admiration  for  Walt  Whit 
man's  firm  stroke  and  unborrowed  strain  halts  at  the 
bald  spots  on  his  page.  "  Xot  that  we  would  be  un 
clothed,  but  clothed  upon,"  he  cries  with  Paul.  But, 
discriminating  what  is  unfit  for  literature,  his  percep 
tion  has  no  drawback.  That  an  observer  so  quick, 
a  surveyor  so  wide,  whose  imagination  was  an  eye 
and  his  passions  asleep,  his  brain  at  least  as  full 
as  his  heart  was  warm,  should  advise  the  reading  of 
all  the  bibles  on  bent  knees,  is  a  great  evidence  and 
vote  on  behalf  of  religion.  His  faith  was  faithful- 


o 

ness. 


"  Nor  knowest  thou  what  argument 
Thy  life  to  thy  neighbor's  creed  hath  lent." 

Emerson,  supposed  irreligious,  was  pre-eminently 
religious,  because,  not  bewildered  or  diverted  like  a 
butterfly  by  the  multitude  of  gay  phenomena,  he 
clung  to  the  noumena,  the  real_and  invisible,  and  his 
conduct  corresponded  to  his  belief  Bogtna  is  thought 
to  be  the  parent  of  creed ;  but  behavior  returns  the 
compliment,  and  fashions  the  faith.  Through  all  the 
spectacle  and  panorama  of  sensible  impressions,  coat 
of  many  colors,  protean  forms,  he,  as  Plato  bids,  exer- 


122  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

cised  his  intellect.  His  mind  and  heart  sought  the 
object  of  worship.  The  atheist  leaps  like  a 'grass 
hopper  from  appearance  to  appearance ;  the  pan 
theist  fails  to  distinguish  appearance  from  reality. 
He  fixed  on  the  unity  in  the  universe.  He  marked 
the  spiritual  motives,  perpetual  forces,  beautiful  laws ; 
he  saw  them,  at  work  in  trifles  as  manifest  as  in  the 
vast  domain,  life  a  game  played  with  a  mill  or  a  mil 
lion,  and  from  all  aberration  he  noted  recovery  sure 
as  the  planet's  or  the  comet's  curve. 

"  And  while  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn, 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return." 

He  translates  the  old  into  a  new  couplet :  — 

"  And  the  joy  that  is  sweetest 
Lurks  in  stings  of  remorse." 

To  him,  as  to  Wordsworth,  all  is  full  of  blessings. 
There  is  Boston  and  Concord,  Bunker  Hill  and  the 
"dear  old  Devil  not  far  off," — a  shadowy  personage  to 
be  made  a  jest  of.  Life  is  a  normal  school,  in  which 
he  instructs  his  class,  the  highest  in  rank,  but  not 
the  most  numerous ;  and  he  is,  unawares,  the  clear 
pattern  of  his  own  bright  lesson.  He  embodied  — 
and  was  incarnate  in  every  feature  and  gesture  — 
what  he  taught,  affording  "  the  luxury  of  a  religion 
that  does  not  degrade."  Nothing  can  alienate,  dis 
locate,  set  him  at  odds  with  God.  He  is  reconciled ; 
he  falls  "  soft  on  a  thought." 

Shall  we  then  indorse  his  criticism  on  this  wheel 
or  fandango  of  articles  and  rites  which  we  call  the 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  123 

Church,  the  same  complaint  in  substance  he  makes 
on  the  common  spawn  of  the  species  we  belong  to, — 

"  Add  their  niiie  lives  to  this  cat, 
Stuff  their  nine  brains  in  his  hat  "  ? 

Does  his  description  hold  of  the  poor  preacher  as 
spectral,  while  the  snow-storm  is  real  ?  Is  the  sacred 
truth  "but  behooted  and  behowled"  ?  Let  his  picture 
pass  for  humor.  Plato  would  shut  such  poetry,  with 
that  of  Hesiod  and  Homer  and  with  the  enervating 
music,  out  of  his  republic.  Let  me  plead  for  the  poor 
preacher,  to  whom  a  certain  "  fellow-feeling  makes 
me  wondrous  kind."  He  does  not  in  his  plain  homily 
grasp  the  naked  thunderbolts  of  Jove,  which  slip 
from  all  fleshly  hands.  He  does  not  receive,  but 
transmits,  link  after  link,  through  long  circles  and 
wide  ranges,  the  first  full  shock.  It  must  be  weak 
ened,  for  the  feeble  children  of  men  to  bear.  The 
efficacy  of  certain  medicines  depends  on  their  dilu 
tion,  and  the  high  potency  of  moral  principle  on  its 
nice  adaptation  to  the  patient's  strength.  Meat  for 
men,  milk  for  babes.  When  Dr.  Walker  was  told  the 
sermon  had  been  very  dull  one  Sunday  morning,  he 
said  he  doubted  not  it  was  very  good,  —  no  ambitious 
sensational  undertaking  to  capture  and  astonish  by 
an  ambitious  official  with  his  chin  in  the  air,  but  a 
modest  rehearsal  of  familiar  and  yet  forgotten  or  neg 
lected  duties.  Commonly  it  is  well  to  serve  not  high- 
spiced  brands,  but  brown  bread,  which  Fields  told  me 
he  furnished.  Water  is  more  wholesome  than  wine. 
Andrews  Norton  being  in  the  assembly,  Ephraim 


124  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Peabody  said  unquestionably  the  great  professor  had 
despised  the  logic,  and  been  mortified  by  the  law 
of  the  discourse.  The  strings  which  the  violinist 
screws  too  tight  before  he  begins,  crack  before  he 
gets  through,  and  all  for  the  time  is  over  with  the 
piece  he  would  play.  Transcendental  catgut  will  not 
always  bear  the  strain  put  upon  it,  while  the  hurdy- 
gurdy  in  the  street  pleases  the  crowd  and  fears  no 
casualty.  "  Hear  the  good  artists,  hear  the  bad,  and 
compare,"  said  Eubinstein  to  his  pupil.  Ordinary 
human  nature,  trudging  like  Shakspeare's  boy  "  un 
willingly  to  school,"  must  not  be  reproved  too  harshly 
in  the  slow  entertainment  and  moderate  stint. 

But  Emerson,  in  his  own  poems  about  the  "  Day's 
Eation  "  and  the  Days  like  hypocritic  dervishes,  with 
artless  cunning  of  self-reproof  and  owning  of  however 
lamented  limits,  sufficiently  refutes  his  own  argu 
ment  or  rules  his  case  of  exorbitant  demand  out  of 
court.  He  goes  ahead  ;  but  a  good  locomotive  knows 
how  to  back  and  couple  with  the  train.  It  must 
not  be  forward  too  far.  Loose  on  the  track,  flying  to 
and  fro,  it  is  called  a  wild  engine,  hauling  neither 
passengers  nor  freight.  Such,  perhaps,  are  some  of 
Emerson's  excursions.  He  is  one  of  his  own  fore 
runners.  Far  off  his  trumpet  sounds  and  stirs. 
Genius  is  always  sublime  in  its  call.  Eubinstein 
liked  not  our  most  famous  American  preacher's  tell 
ing  his  audience  they  could  not  be  expected  to  go 
beyond  their  strength.  "  No,"  he  affirmed,  "  they  must 
do  the  impossible.  I  tell  my  pupils  they  must  try 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  125 

to  surpass  Beethoven,  or  not  study  at  all."  But  we 
accuse  God  when  we  are  hard  on  congenitally  weak 
and  slenderly  endowed  men.  I  sympathize  with  the 
under-dog.  I  think  Emerson,  the  genial  and  gentle, 
sometimes  punishes  his  opponent  too  sorely,  bad 
gers  conservatives,  and  with  blockheads  and  laggards 
is  too  severe.  But  he  spares  the  person,  while  he 
assails  the  class.  Only  against  a  few  persons  did  I 
hear  him  speak.  He  is  aware  of  and  ever  ready  to 
return  from  his  over-statement  and  excess.  He  says, 
—  perhaps  the  passage  I  heard  is  not  in  print,  —  "  We 
censure  the  rich,  the  fashionable,  and  luxurious  folk  ; 
but  we  go  to  their  houses  to  find  they  are  lovers, 
and  our  hasty  judgment  is  reversed."  His  weapon 
has  a  trenchant  edge  and  tremendous  swing.  Ad 
mirable  is  Milton's  line  of  the  Son  of  God  routing 
the  hosts  of  Satan :  — 

"  Half  his  strength  he  put  not  forth." 

He  would  disperse  but  not  destroy ;  and  enjoining, 
we  must  not  exact  or  insist  on,  angelic  virtue  save  in 
ourselves ;  with  the  two-edged  sword  of  conscience 
smiting  in  more  than  out.  Plato  sees  the  ideal  ;  the 
incarnation  he  does  not  expect.  But  superior  gift  or 
character  is  impatient  with  low  attainment.  We  bolt 
in  vain  if  the  bolters  be  no  better  than  the  rest.  Not 
from  any  vulgar  soul,  but  from  Homer,  Dante,  Milton, 
even  John  and  Jesus,  come  the  awful  pictures  of  that 
underworld  where  sinners  are  like  flies  we  poison 
and  burn,  only  that  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is 


126  THE  GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

not  quenched.  The  infernal  upholstery  is  chalked 
large,  the  figures  made  colossal,  because  so  far  off  the 
eye  will  fetch  them  down  to  a  small  and  fitting  size. 
A  large  dose  is  brought,  when  only  a  little  can  be 
got  down.  It  would,  one  said,  have  totally  depraved 
Jonathan  Edwards  to  realize  the  menaces  he  flung. 
Emerson  atones  for  his  repudiation  of  the  old  theology 
by  painting  the  earthly  scene  as  taunted  with  churls 
and  little  men.  But  he  recants,  retracts  his  satire, 
prophesies  good  out  of  all  that  is  bad  and  low,  gra 
ciously  descends  to  the  folk,  not  only  from  the  proud 
hill  in  Cheshire,  but  from  the  Monadnoc  of  his  mind. 
He  scorns  the  mass  as  refuse,  the  majority  of  voices 
as  base ;  yet  how  quick  our  acrobat  turns,  recovers, 
and  falls  on  his  feet ! 

"The  pariah  hind 
Admits  thee  to  the  perfect  mind." 

He  cannot  be  an  ecclesiastic  when  the  Church  is  so 
corrupt  that  financial  gamblers  are  communicants  in 
regular  standing,  to  "  be  sharp  as  a  Baptist  deacon  " 
is  a  motto  for  the  market,  and  memorial  windows  are 
put  in  cathedrals  for  persons  who  have  no  title  to 
the  sacred  honor  beyond  their  sect  or  wealth.  Yet 
Emerson  has  no  conceit  of  doing  without  the  Church, 
—  the  institution  which  does  the  thinking  for  Balzac's 
Breton  gentleman  and  cavalier,  who  fancies  it  is 
enough  for  him  to  draw  his  sword  and  act. 

On  the  fact  that  religion  is  not  an  interest  of  the 
individual  or  of  all  individuals  alone,  but  a  social 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  127 

principle,  it  was  not  in  the  line  of  Emerson's  thought 
—  more  deep  and  lofty  than  wise  and  broad  —  to  lay 
adequate  stress.  He  is  not  to  be  blamed  that  he  stuck 
to  his  mission.  We  must  not  expect  a  seer  to  be 
an  organizer,  any  more  than  a  microscopist  to  be  a 
helmsman,  or  an  astronomer  an  engineer.  We  must 
supplement  his  calling,  extend  his  vision,  and  per 
haps  correct  his  view.  In  the  irony  of  his  "  Sartor 
Besartus,"  —  an  essay  hinted  in  Swift's  "  World  in  a 
Suit  of  Clothes,"  —  Carlyle  walks  over  a  track  of 
philosophy  quite  beyond  Emerson's  beat.  Browning, 
in  his  satirical  poem,  makes  Bishop  Blougram  the 
unbelieving  objector's  match.  Society,  civil  or  re 
ligious,  must  have  its  symbols  and  symbolical  books. 
To  discard  ordinances  and  forms  were  to  abolish  its 
vocabulary  and  cut  out  its  tongue.  To  confine  its 
communication  to  improvised  spontaneous  speech  in 
its  worship,  were  both  to  abolish  literature  and  to 
remand  the  community  from  arbitrary  characters  to 
picture-language  and  natural  signs.  Altar,  temple, 
synagogue,  mosque,  meeting-house,  and  conventicle, 
with  their  architecture  and  various  inward  and  out 
ward  order,  are  the  style  and  alphabet  of  a  common 
prayer  and  praise,  in  token  that  men  are  not  to  go 
away  each  to  his  own  selfish  solitude  with  so  much 
of  the  bread  of  life  as  he  can  get  hold  of,  as  a  dog 
runs  off  with  a  bone  to  gnaw ;  but  in  their  instruc 
tions  and  devotions  to  have  some  sort  of  Lord's  Sup 
per  to  sit  down  together  to,  as  in  a  house  we  have  a 
table  as  well  as  a  sideboard ;  and,  though  on  occasion 


128  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

we  may  carry  a  lunch  in  our  pocket,  we  come  back 
habitually  to  a  joint  and  punctual  feast. 

So,  but  from  poverty  of  imagination,  and  a  horse- 
jockey  kind  of  wit,  did  Theodore  Parker  call  he  ele 
ments  nothing  but  baker's  bread  and  grocer's  wine, 
and  say  "the  Lord  ate  veal  with  Abraham;"  and 
that  it  is  whining  through  an  attorney  to  pray  in  the 
name  of  Christ.  (Emerson  was  kept  from  such  gross- 
ness  by  his  sagacity  and  charity  no  less  than  his 
good  taste.^  Delivering  his  blow,  he  dreamed  not  the 
nail  he  hit  was  the  only  one  in  the  common  weal's 
fabric  to  drive.  Abstractions  and  generalizations  will 
not,  without  particular  prescriptions,  heal  and  save 
the  sick  and  lost.  '  All  space  is  a  temple,  but  we  need 
some  visible  shrine.  ]  All  days  are  holy ;  suppose  we 
begin  with  one  ?  God  is  everywhere  ;  but,  lest  igno 
rant  creatures  think  him  nowhere,  trample  his  uni 
versal  sanctuary  with  violence  and  noise,  and  find 
no  ground  reverently  to  put  off  the  shoes  from  their 
profane  and  hasty  feet,  let  Protestant  service  and 
Romish  mass  remind  them  he  is  at  least  somewhere !  ^ 
Better  the  superstition  that  besots  than  the  Sadducee- 
ism  that  desolates  and  disenchants.  It  is  a  mechani 
cal  age.  We  have  political  and  theological  machines, 
and  must  withstand  their  brute  tyrannic  force,  and 
get  the  best  resultant  we  can.  But  if  all  contract, 
compromise,  and  concerted  action  fall  under  the  head 
of  machinery,  it  were  as  prudent  to  wipe  out  mills 
and  railroads,  hunt  around  everybody  for  his  own 
fig-leaf,  and  go  only  afoot,  as  to  disintegrate  nations 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  129 

by  dissolving  civil  government  or  ecclesiastical  rule. 
"  In  company  or  on  the  street,"  says  Bismarck,  "  I  am 
not  an  individual,  but  an  event."  He  means  Ger 
many.  ,  Of  the  units,  society  is  the  source,  not  the 
sum.  Will  you  destroy  with  dynamite  and  petro 
leum  the  religious  emblems  ?  Blow  up,  then,  judicial 
benches  with  like  explosion,  and  put  flag  and  shield 
into  the  same  fire  !  The  world  is  a  cipher.  Only  for 
what  it  signifies  do  we  care.  The  soul  is  the  numeral. 
Time  and  space  are  but  the  floor  and  curtain-slides 
of  an  illusory  and  transitory  stage.  Certainly  there 
may  be  minutiae  and  mummeries  in  the  Church  of 
but  artificial  import,  which  justification  of  reason 
cannot  reach;  but  no  passwords  of  an  army,  no 
signals  at  sea,  no  travellers'  beckonings  or  business 
telegrams,  have  consequences  greater  than  decent 
religious  observances  for  the  human  heart.  Eufus 
Choate  humorously  said  of  a  certain  witness,  that  he 
had  overworked  the  participle.  We  overwork  all 
the  parts  of  speech,  and  expect  to  do  everything  with 
words. 

"  No  mountain  can 
Measure  with  a  perfect  man." 

Yet  no  man,  says  Emerson,  can  feed  us  ever.  Man, 
measure  of  all  things,  has  his  measure  in  every  hu 
man  sample  yet.  Even  in  our  present  favorite  wre 
must  note  what  is  limitary  and  left  out  as  well  as 
catholic  and  large.  Perhaps  from  his  imperfect  com 
prehension  comes  his  atomic  style.  Cardinal  New 
man  has  a  running  hand  because  borne  on  amid  the 


130  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

social  or  ecclesiastical  stream.  How  can  the  con 
scious  and  unconscious  in  speech  and  character  be 
combined  ?  In  certain  pieces  of  orchestral  music 
the  general  movement  of  the  wind  and  string  instru 
ments  is  broken  in  upon  from  the  unseen  outside 
by  some  herald's,  horseman's,  huntsman's  messenger- 
horn,  on  which  the  strain  pauses  for  a  moment  and 
then  relapses  into  the  even  tenor  of  its  way.  With 
whatever  jars  in  the  execution,  it  is  a  grand  symphony 
whose  score  is  set  in  the  human  generations.  The 
discord  is  not  in  the  composition,  but  in  the  censori 
ous  critic's  ear.  But  room  is  provided  for  the  clarion 
of  the  prophet  to  interrupt  the  uniform  sleepy  notes 
in  their  course.  Emerson  arrived,  after  many  a  He 
brew  and  Pagan  oracle,  to  blow  the  old  trumpet  again. 
To  him  how  many  owe  it  that  they  are  now  awake, 
while  all  the  performers  within  hailing  distance  of 
the  oracular  summons  and  recall  bend  with  new  zeal 
to  their  several  parts. 

Mr.  Arnold,  who  has  forgot  the  dreams  and  got 
so  bravely  over  the  supposed  illusions  of  his  youth, 
putting  for  them  the  depressing  doubts  and  hopeless 
speculations  of  his  age,  while  he  prizes  Emerson's 
spiritual  substance,  eschews,  as  not  good  tissue,  his 
literary  style.  Moses,  David,  Jesus  as  reported  by  his 
amanuenses,  Paul  too,  and  James,  under  this  self-con 
fident  critic's  cleaver  must  lose  their  heads,  as  writers 
and  authors,  on  the  same  block.  They  too  are  no 
weavers  of  words,  whose  work  is  figured  by  the  loom ; 
but  brief,  sententious,  pictorial,  ejaculatory,  a  quiver 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  131 

full  of  arrows  being  rather  their  type.  Is  there  not 
a  good  prophetic  and  oracular  as  well  as  a  didactic 
or  dialectic  style  ?  Emerson's  is  not  the  only,  and 
may  not  be  the  best.  It  is  not  consecutive,  a  logi 
cal  demonstration,  or  a  spontaneous  combustion.  It 
is  neither  a  conflagration  nor  a  flood.  It  is  good 
form,  nevertheless.  Its  growth  is  not  that  of  a  flower, 
but  a  gem.  He  makes  of  green  wood  a  fire,  some 
times  hot,  anon  going  out.  He  is  an  intermittent 
geyser,  a  fountain  that  does  not  always  play.  But 
he  draws  from  the  heart  of  Nature  and  the  river  of 
God.  nationalizing  writers  spin  from  their  brains : 
he  waits  patient  as  a  bivalve  for  the  tide.  It  is  not 
passion,  but  peace,  in  this  racket  of  the  world  of 
mental  uneasiness  hushed  and  drowned  so  poorly  by 
travel  in  a  million  trains.  When  his  tripod  speaks, 
it  articulates  the  everlasting  word.  It  is  an  even 
motion,  no  spurt.  Goodness,  in  Emerson,  appears  at 
its  high- water  mark,  —  like  the  successive  lines  the 
coast-tide  leaves,  as  if  it  were  ruled  on  the  ocean- 
cliffs.  It  was  absolute,  punctual  worth.  All  th  e  watches 
oscillate  and  go  a  little  wrong :  hejvas  like  the  Cam 
bridge  Observatory,  and  gave  us  sidereal  time,  but  for 
which  to  refer  to  there  would  be  variations  incorrigi 
ble  and  without  end.  His  was  no  piecemeal  probity. 
Reverent,  not  abject ;  high,  not  haughty ;  pride  and 
humility  ofle  and  the  same.  In  the  conflict  between 
the  world-spirit  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  which  the 
former  is  so  apt  to  get  the  upper  hand,  he  was  a 
Pentecostal  man,  planting  himself  on  his  instincts 


132  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

till  the  huge  world  came  round  to  him.  He  was  not 
content  with  average  virtue,  or  with  the  available, 
because  unprincipled,  nominee.  The  bawling  dema 
gogue  in  yonder  court-house,  he  told  me,  blew  him, 
as  he  walked,  across  the  road  with  the  breath  of  his 
mouth.  He  refused  his  hand  to  the  philanthropist 
on  the  trickster's  side.  When  Theodore  Parker's  Har 
vard  College  friends  wanted  to  adjourn  and  lobby  to 
get  for  him  a  literary  honor,  the  truthful,  impolitic 
Emerson  voted  not  to  postpone.  In  his  tenderness 
was  pluck.  Seeing  what  stuff  his  virtue  was  made 
of,  the  article  seems  cheap  which  is  hawked  about 
the  streets.  We  thank  him  for  another  example  of 
what  God  cannot  afford  to  throw  away. 

In  the  Italian  engraving  of  Raphael's  "  Marriage  of 
the  Virgin  "  is  the  imprint,  that  if  the  yet  beardless 
artist  could  produce  such  a  work,  never  did  finer 
dawning  announce  a  splendid  day.  I  am  reminded 
of  this  inscription  by  Emerson's  first  sermons  (pas 
sages  of  these  from  the  manuscripts  having  been 
read  to  me),  which,  though  somewhat  florid,  prefigure 
the  style  of  his  poems  and  essays.  His  language 
from  the  first  was  like  a  reminting  of  old  coins  from 
which  edge  and  figure  have  been  worn  off.  He  knew 
and  could  reveal  the  power  that  lurks  in  a  word. 
All  words  in  their  origin  are  potencies,  dynamites, 
few  of  which,  as  most  writers  place  them,  go  off. 
Emerson  explodes  his  in  a  better  fashion  than  elocu 
tionists  teach ;  and  they  are  not  from  his  hands  any 
Nihilist's  infernal  machines.  Never  was  war  more 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  133 

holy  than  he  waged  against  injustice  and  untruth. 
Great  as  was  his  genius,  it  is  surpassed  by  his  moral 
worth.  Eeformers  have  their  angles,  philanthropists 
their  bitter  and  uncharitable  side.  He  gave  to  none 
gall  and  vinegar  to  drink.  Should  I  be  suffered  to 
select  the  three  great  characters  of  American  his 
tory,  I  should  name  Washington,  Lincoln,  —  the  lily 
out  of  Illinois  mud,  —  and  Emerson.  In  the  religious 
sphere,  Unitarianism  has  given  us  Channiug;  Method 
ism,  Taylor;  Quakerism,  Whittier;  Transcendentalism, 
Emerson, — a  soul  religious  because  reverent  for  what 
deserves  to  be  revered.  Plato  says  the  child  must  be 
so  revered  by  the  parents  that  they  will  do  nought 
they  would  not  have  him  repeat.  What  gold  or  gems 
deserve  to  spell  such  a  line  !  Goethe  would  teach 
reverence  threefold,  —  for  what  is  beneath  as  well  as 
above  and  within.  Emerson's  posture  was  expect 
ance  to  be  surprised  and  pleased  with  divine  reveal- 
ings,  which  he  watched  for  as  astronomers  for  new 
heavenly  bodies  or  for  the  aurora,  never  wanting  him 
self  to  shine,  but  to  be  eclipsed.  He  longed  for  the 
Deity  to  come  out  of  hiding  in  every  person  and 
at  every  point.  It  is  a  small  testimony,  but  I  have 
not  known  anybody  who  won  more  my  own  respect ; 
and  on  such  religiousness,  as  in  certain  quarters  of 
fancied  intelligence  it  goes  out  of  fashion,  let  us  lay 
stress.  Emerson's  thoughts  and  moods  change.  We 
must  make  an  average  or  personal  equation  of  them 
at  diverse  earlier  or  later  times.  But  there  is  no 
need  of  a  varying  judgment  or  discount  of  what  he 


134  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

was,  his  last  days  his  best.  His  memory  failed  ;  and 
how  much  we  can  afford  to  forget !  His  spiritual 
growth  did  not  cease  or  slow.  No  American  or  con 
temporary  in  any  land  has  had  a  finer  brain ;  but  it 
did  not  rob  his  heart  of  blood.  He  was  not  of  those 
who  think  the  universe  a  great  Saturn  devouring  men, 
and  profess  with  equanimity  to  bury  forever  their 
dead.  In  his  view,  the  agnostics  and  materialists 

"  With  science  poorly  mask  their  hurt." 

He  would  not  have  written,  at  the  end  of  life,  of 

"  The  grief  whose  balsam  never  grew." 

Emerson  was  a  minister  who  had  taken  off  the 
gown.  As  overseer  of  Harvard  University,  he  thought 
prayer  the  highest  act  of  the  human  mind.  His  was 
a  virile,  not  sentimental,  vote.  To  some  his  gracious 
form  and  manner  suggested  a  feminine  mind ;  and 
his  friend  Henry  James  said  one  might  feel  a  love 
for  him  as  for  a  woman.  But  he  was  rugged  in  his 
opinion  as  Bismarck  or  Carlyle.  I  asked  him  if  he 
approved  of  war.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  in  one  bom  to 
fight ; "  as  Theodore  Parker  predicted  the  sword  to 
cut  our  Gordian  knot  pf  human  bonds.  He  delighted 
in  the  heat  and  onset  of  Phillips's  oratory,  preferring 
Phillips  in  his  difference  with  Garrison  ;  but  after 
wards  changing  his 'mind.  His  own  tenderness  was 
but  the  glove  or  gauntlet  of  force.  He  said  John 
Brown  had  made  the  gallows  glorious  like  the  cross. 
But  the  glory  of  the  Kansas  raids  and  of  Harper's 
Ferry,  great  as  it  may  have  been,  was  not  the  same 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  135 

as  that  of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary.  One  star  differ- 
eth  from  another  star  in  glory ;  though,  when  the  hero 
of  Osawatomie  became  a  martyr,  the  halo  round  his 
head  was  a  complementary  color,  at  least,  to  that  in 
which  Jesus  died,  and  the  sun  of  righteousness  set  to 
rise  again.  Emerson  admired  will  and  power ;  wanted 
the  leader  and  "  self  of  the  nation  "  to  appear,  and  the 
giants  of  a  new  race  to  leap  over  the  "Western  hills. 
It  was  the  rough  original  vigor,  not  the  coarseness, 
that  pleased  him  in  V^afi  Whitman's  lines.  Xot 
executive  himself,  he  rejoiced  in  personal  prowess 
and  accomplishment,  and  repeated  with  glee  Horatio 
Greenough's  story  of  General  Jackson,  that  when  a 
bank  deputation  of  business  men  waited  on  him  to 
protest  against  the  financial  policy  of  the  adminis 
tration,  having  listened  courteously  like  a  polite  host, 
the  President  made  but  this  reply :  "  Gentlemen,  have 
you  done  ?  Then  it  only  remains  for  me  to  send  for 
Mrs.  Eaton  to  come  with  her  broom  and  sweep  you 
all  out  of  the  Capitol."  "  That,"  added  Greenough, "  not 
Mr.  Webster's  logic,  is  what  I  call  ability."  Emer 
son  relished  strength,  a  touch  of  the  mailed  hand  in 
speech  and  literature.  Of  an  English  lecturer,  Pro 
fessor  Owen,  very  soft-spoken  in  his  style  but  bold 
in  his  views,  he  said,  "  He  has  a  surgical  smile."  He 
expected  revolutions  in  our  theories  of  the  world,  and 
greeted  that  herald  of  evolutionary  doctrine,  "Ves 
tiges  of  Creation,"  which  Agassiz  called  a  second-rate 
book.  But  all  was  from  and  for  the  worship  which 
made  the  span  betwixt  his  Essays  and  his  songs. 


136  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

The  last  half-century  of  his  life  overcame  the 
prejudice  that  began  at  his  break  with  the  Church ; 
and  never  by  personal  traits  was  won  victory  more 
complete.  His  charm  on  whoever  met  him  never 
failed.  Father  Taylor  said,  if  Ernerson  went  to  hell  it 
would  change  the  climate,  and  the  emigration  would 
be  that  way.  He  himself  said  of  a  winsome  preacher, 
"  He  need  not  speak  while  he  looks  thus ; "  as  he  said 
of  a  certain  political  agitator,  "  His  eyes  are  but  holes 
in  his  head."  He  has  celebrated  in  verse  how  all  the 
powers  of  the  soul  ride  on  the  eye  ;  and  there  was 
a  soft  penetration  in  his  own  which  expressed  the 
perfect  blending  of  wisdom  and  love, — the  keenest 
curiosity  and  loftiest  rapture  of  the  human  mind. 

No  man's  faith  is  determined  by  his  own  wit 
alone.  Tradition,  heredity,  and  human  consent  can 
not  be  shut  off,  as  from  the  smallest  vessel  the  air 
cannot  be  quite  pumped  out.  Paul  declares,  "  After 
the  way  called  heresy,  so  worshipped  I  the  God 
of  my  fathers."  Webster  said  his  was  the  belief 
that  came  down.  Emerson  advised  accepting  the 
venerable  and  majestic  form  of  piety  transmitted, 
without  criticism  too  minute,  seeing  the  critical  fac 
ulty  has  metes  and  should  keep  within  bounds.  In 
his  Historical  Discourse,  in  Concord,  1835,  the  period 
of  his  supposed  treason  to  the  Church,  he  speaks  of 
those  who  since  the  planting  of  the  town  had  served 
God  and  never  let  go  the  hope  of  immortality.  The 
acknowledgment  of  the  Supreme  Being,  he  adds, 
brought  the  fathers  hither.  In  his  last  word,  at 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  137 

Cambridge,  on  this  theme,  he  tells  the  students  that  to 
lose  this  confidence  is  to  take  the  sun  out  of  the  sky. 
The  extreme  Independent  fancies  religion  a  private 
conceit,  every  man  to  spin  his  own.  An  atheistic  lec 
turer  whom,  though  on  my  friendly  invitation,  Em 
erson  did  not  want  to  see,  seems  to  some  to  imagine 
he  can  untwist  its  whole  cord  from  the  heart  of  man 
kind  But  the  thread  is  wrought  into  our  fibre,  not 
by  our  fingers,  but  by  many  a  million  hands,  like  spin 
dles  driven  by  a  head  of  power.  It  is  threefold, — 

-deity,  duty,  destiny. 

I  linger,  and  am  loath  to  leave  contemplating  this 
fine  nature,  fair  creature,  beautiful  soul,  served  by 
an  intelligence  like  a  powerful  glass  well  adjusted  in 
every  joint  and  lens,  through  which  when  he  looked, 
as  Goethe  said  of  himself,  he  saw  all  there  was ; 
whatever  and  whoever  he  turned  his  instrument 
toward  being  disclosed,  —  the  quality,  not  quantity, 
being  what  he  would  find.  In  the  blackberry  pas 
ture,  a  thicket  of  ripeness,  he  said  to  me,  "  Let  us  eat 
one  berry,"  wishing  not  to  please  his  palate,  but  dis 
tinguish  the  taste.  He  was  prophetic,  not  historic  ; 

-gazing  for  daybreak,  not  sunset.  Like  Thoreau, — 
who,  when  he  had  made  a  perfect  pencil,  dropped  that 
business  to  try  something  else,  —  for  improvement 
everywhere  Emerson  longed  and  toiled  with  good 
cheer.  Even  the  half-pound  he  weighed  more  than 
he  thought,  he  took  as  an  omen  of  better  things. 
The  crescent  of  the  Saracen's  banner  should  be  en 
graved  on  his  shield  or  carved  on  his  tomb.  He  was 


138  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

a  beholder,  not  one  of  the  players  in  any  game  of 
blind-man's-buff.  He  was  no  abbot  of  unreason,  but 
organ  of  reason,  holding  nought  a  calamity  leaving 
him  his  eyes.  /How  speak  of  his  delight  at  these 
first  pictures  in  God's  great  gallery,  which  Nurse 
Nature  shows  ?  He  did  not  believe  he  should,  after 
this  hour  of  mortal  life,  be  turned  out.  j  We  com 
mend  him  to  the  Christian  conviction  he  with  the 
great  Apostle  shared  :  — 

"  Then  shall  we  see  as  we  are  seen, 
And  know  as  we  are  known." 

Some  men,  great  or  potent  and  influential  as  rulers, 
actors,  orators,  preachers,  reformers  in  their  time,  live 
only  as  traditions,  and  leave  in  language  little  record 
of  their  career.  Emerson's  works  remain,  —  nothing 
in  American  or  modern  English  literature  destined  to 
have  a  longer  date,  notable  I  know  not  whether  more 
for  the  weight  they  carry  or  the  height  they  reach. 
As  the  condor  outsoars  the  sparrow  and  wren,  as  the 
frigate  outsails  the  birch  canoe,  so  what  is  strong  in 
thought  is  lasting  and  swift.  Bare  and  delightful  as 
was  his  public  or  private  speech,  no  man's  words  de 
pend  less  on  the  manner  and  voice.  They  walk  well 
without  their  author ;  or,  like  birds  pushed  over  the 
edge  of  the  parent- nest,  fly  at  once.  Yet  within  recol 
lection  no  decease  from  our  midst  has  withdrawn  an 
element  like  his,  —  atmosphere  to  breathe,  climate  to 
heal.  Some  in  their  day  imposing  figures  we  do  not 
miss.  Their  mission  ends,  their  funeral  is  in  order ; 


0 
EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  139 


f  UN 


it  seems  proper  they  should  die ;  the  coffin-lid  closes 
fitly  over  their  remains.  But  though  Emerson  had 
reached  a  great  age,  we  were  not  ready  to  part  with 
him.  We  felt  him  in  the  air.  He  was  an  impor 
tant  friend,  companion,  kinsman,  fellow-citizen,  to  the 
last ;  a  wayfarer  everybody  was  glad  to  greet ;  one 
whose  enemy  none  could  continue  to  be ;  a  charmer, 
whose  spell  was  not  to  be  escaped.  In  our  fine  silk 
or  broadcloth  we  look  out  with  shrinking  terror  on  the 
tramp.  /  Who  are  the  tramps,  but  such  as,  in  robes  or 
rags,  on  foot  or  in  phaeton,  pervade  this  earthly  re 
gion  and  consume  the  corn  they  do  not  produce,  men 
and  women  without  worth  or  use  ?\  I  have  spoken 
of  one  no  tramp,  but  a  worker  and  traveller  in  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

"  Standing  in  the  blithe  air,  my  head  uplifted  into 
infinite  space,"  says  Emerson,  "  all  mean  egotism  van 
ishes."  He  was  the  air  and  the  sun  he  stood  in,  and 
needed  not  to  speak  of  them  apart  from  himself.  He 
was  a  social,  yet  insulated,  man.  Jesus  had  his  wil 
derness,  Paul  his  Arabia,  Mahomet  the  desert,  and 
the  Persian  poet 

""Wise  Saadi  dwells  alone." 

Emerson  addresses  his  own  person,  — 

"Go,  lonely  man  ;" 

and  he  complains  that  no  man  goes  alone.  "Con 
sider,"  said  a  disagreeable  man,  "you  only  have  to 
see  me  occasionally,  —  once  in  a  while.  I  never  get 


140  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

away  from  myself."  Few  people  can  bear  themselves 
long,  —  hardly  any  one  all  the  time.  Ernerson  likes 
the  tumultuous  privacy  of  the  storm,  dear  hermit 
age  of  Nature.  See  the  trains  and  ships  !  Whither 
go  the  travellers  by  land  or  sea  ?  Not  to  Europe,  to 
Asia,  to  the  Yosemite,  White  Hills,  or  North  Pole ; 
but  away  from  themselves,  away  from  home,  away 
from  God,  —  from  the  mountains,  the  unexplored  re 
gions,  the  Holy  Land  in  their  own  souls.  Emerson 
abode  in  his  breast. 

"  Who  bides  at  home,  nor  looks  abroad, 
Carries  the  eagle  and  masters  the  sword." 

He  could  endure  and  enjoy  his  own  company,  which 
was  the  divine  angelic  company,  and  when  guests 
came  he  missed  his  mighty  gods.  But  he  was  less 
solitary  in  his  closet  than  among  the  stars.  He  muses, 
like  the  psalmist,  till  the  fire  burns,  of  thought  and 
love  and  worship.  But  Nature,  dear  as  she  was,  did 
not  eclipse  his  spiritual  visions,  nor  worldly  noise 
drown  the  inward  voice  so  dreadful  to  Adam  and  to 
every  sinner,  but  such  a  solace  to  the  upright.  The 
soul  in  him  had  hushed  her  secret  strife  and  become 
a  pure  and  free  personality,  —  author,  as  he  says  so 
few  are,  of  its  own  actions ;  an  original  force,  not  the 
property  of  any  party  or  sect.  He  preaches  inde 
pendence.  Man,  to  him,  is  the  Fourth  of  July  of 
zoology.  He  laments  the  confounding  of  individuals 
in  the  mass,  as  soldiers  wear  uniform,  hacks  are  tick 
eted,  and  a  prisoner  takes  the  number  of  his  cell. 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  141 

But,  says  Edmund  Burke,  when  bad  men  combine, 
the  good  should  associate.  Eeligiously  and  politi 
cally  so  they  must  and  will.  Emerson's  word  is  the 
grain  of  salt  to  keep  the  association  from  corruption, 
sound  and  sweet. 

In  one  of  his  papers  Mr.  Emerson  speaks  of  the 
vast  loss  when  the  brain  of  a  great  scholar  gives 
way.  The  treasure  of  his  own  knowledge  of  things 
or  words  seemed  at  the  close  hid  from  him  or  locked 
up,  and  he  could  not  find  the  key.  In  this  oblivion, 
with  cessation  of  the  power  of  productive  work, 
there  was  a  pathos  and  beauty  of  stillness.  "  We  are 
very  ancient,"  he  would  answer  to  my  inquiry  after 
his  health.  Sometimes  he  would  gently  whistle,  as 
if  at  the  vanity  of  all  that  passes,  —  as  the  forgetful 
wind  sweeps  off  the  dust  mortal  beauty  crumbles 
into,  singing  by  the  way  in  some  casement  or  ^Eolian 
harp.  But  l^iis  love  and  worship  did  not  decay; 
what  Jean'  Paul  Eichter  calls  the  night-flower  of 
faith  still  continued  blooming.  Kindly  feeling  re 
mained,  kindred  affection  occupied  the  space  left 
vacant  by  dates  and  names.  As  in  a  building  a 
number  of  small  rooms  are  turned  for  some  solemn 
or  festal  purpose  into  a  large  hall,  the  partitions  were 
taken  down  in  his  soul  to  make  a  temple  of  friend 
ship  and  praise.  Memory  was  always  less  to  him 
than  hope.  Complete  remembrance  clogs  the  wings 
of  the  spirit  ready  to  soar.  Heaven  is  no  rehearsal  of 
the  earth.  He  thought  men  overweighed  with  their 
past.  "  And  he  died,  and  he  died,"  he  said  to  me 


142  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

with  wet  eyes,  of  the  brother  who  departed,  for  us, 
too  soon. 

"  Ask  on,  thou  clothed  eternity, 
Time  is  the  false  reply." 

He  is  learning  the  meaning  of  his  own  words. 

There  are  those  who  consider  it  impious  to  com 
pare  living  worth  with  any  old  character  sanctioned 
in  the  canon  and  the  calendar.  No  person  present 
in  the  world  or  lately  deceased  must  be  likened  to 
Abraham,  to  Moses,  to  Jesus  or  Paul.  Alas,  we  cannot 
detect  a  saint  in  the  man  round  the  corner  or  behind 
the  door  !  There  is  no  woman  to  rank  as  musician 
with  Miriam,  or  is  just  such  a  seamstress  as  Dorcas  ! 
It  were  to  mix  sacred  and  profane.  But, 

"  Seigniors,  are  the  old  ISTiles  dry  ? " 

Has  God  failed  ?  Are  the  prophets  no  more  ?  Is 
there  no  vision  now  ?  We  should  almost  be  sorry 
the  seers  ever  lived  on  earth,  if  they  are  dead  and 
no  member  of  their  class  survives.  Every  such 
example  as  I  have  been  called  to  hold  up  is  a  pro 
test  against  making  ancient  merit  discredit  that  of 
to-day.  Truth  is  as  bright,  love  is  as  warm,  adora 
tion  as  lofty  and  uplifting  now  as  thousands  of  years 
ago.  A  pianist  said  to  me,  there  is  a  stamp  of  fine 
gold  on  Beethoven  no  later  composer  should  expect 
to  match ;  as  if  an  old  coin  discovered  in  a  pyramid, 
or  a  bit  of  the  candlestick  Titus  robbed  from  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem,  had  metal  in  it  all  the  mines  of 
Australia  and  California  put  together  could  not  equal 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  143 

or  repay  !  The  earth  still  yields.  Heaven's  breast  is 
not  shrunk.  It  nurses  the  soul  still:  else  itself  were 
empty  and  at  i'ault. 

Our  error  or  superstition  is  to  mistake  a  man  for 
a  principle,  and  identify  a  name  with  a  type.  Xo 
name  can  be  the  whole  thing  !  Character  is  always 
current.  God  does  not  fall  below  himself.  The 
human  race  is  not  running  out.  The  light  of  the 
sun  in  the  sky  is  as  good  as  ever,  and  that  of  right 
eousness  in  Asia  or  America  cannot  fail.  Emerson 
was  a  pattern  of  integrity.  As  Goethe  said  of  one, 
this  is  a  nature,  of  peculiar  property  and  singular 
impression,  not  to  be  confounded  with  any  other,  — 
remarkable  for  quality,  not  quantity.  "  God  loveth 
not  size."  Xot  the  mass  of  his  head,  but  the  lines 
in  his  face,  expressed  him.  To  be  moderate  and  to 
omit  was  his  gift.  "Always  understate,"  he  said 
to  Mr.  Alcott. 

"  I  hung  my  verses  in  the  wind  ; 
Time  and  tide  their  faults  may  find. 
Have  you  eyes  to  find  the  five 
"Which  five  hundred  did  survive  ?  " 

He  said  the  chief  excellence  of  style  is  suppres 
sion,  —  an  expedient  so  cheap,  it  is  strange  it  is  so 
seldom  used.  Reading  a  paper,  he  asked  one  by  his 
side,  in  the  midst  of  his  recital,  with  wonderful 
modesty,  if  he  had  not  better  stop ;  as  Rubinstein 
whispered  to  me  of  his  piano  recital,  when  all  ears 
hung  on  his  touch,  "  It  is  too  long."  They  who  move 
the  world  in  art  or  government  or  war  —  Homer, 


144  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Shakspeare,  Michael  Angelo,  Caesar,  Bonaparte  — 
must  have  for  part  of  their  genius  abundance,  long 
flight,  a  certain  precise  aim  and  avoirdupois  weight. 
Emerson,  unsurpassed  in  height,  lacked  the  spread 
and  the  motion  or  impulse  of  ambition  to  achieve. 
He  was  content  to  be  clean  and  godly  and  deliver  his 
soul.  He  leaves  no  single  extensive  performance. 
He  was  not  caught,  impressed,  or  enlisted  by  any  one 
idea,  object,  or  aspect  of  things.  He  makes  no  epic 
or  drama.  His  songs  are  swallow-flights  on  eagle's 
wings.  He  coolly  surveyed  and  reported,  but  did 
not  conceive  he  had  any  special  mission  or  part  to 
enact,  so  he  could  be,  as  he  was,  faithful  and  true. 
Like  Swedenborg,  he  united  the  keenest  perception 
to  a  mystic  sense.  We  may  amend  or  complete, 
we  cannot  annihilate,  his  report.  He  did  deliver 
his  soul.  He  was  essentially  religious.  The  world 
to  him  was  a  haunted  house :  he  never  got  over 
his  surprise  at  being  in  it  as  one  of  the  ghosts. 
"  Wrangle  who  will,  I  will  wonder."  If  he  finds 
himself  now  in  heaven,  it  is  no  astonishment  to 
him,  as  he  has  had  his  surprise  already  on  the 
earth.  To  exist  is  all.  A  genuine  man,  he  was 
weakened  by  no  contradiction  in  his  own  mind. 
From  his  influence  there  is  no  subtraction  of  a  devia 
tion  or  fault.  He  was  whole,  a  sum  total  of  wisdom 
and  will.  What  he  meant  and  was  meant  for  was 
the  same.  Others  might  not  agree  with  him;  he 
agreed  with  himself, 
of  the  sky." 


EMERSON'S  RELIGION.  145 

Only  to  hint  a  subject,  not  to  explain  a  man,  am  I 
willing  to  speak.  Into  no  pound  of  metaphysic  can 
we  drive  the  soul.  Emerson  thought  Plato  with  his 
dialectic  had  but  bit  this  apple  of  the  world  on  one 
side.  Eubinstein  said  all  were  ruined,  were  all 
found  out.  Our  mind  is  the  numeral  for  this  cipher 
of  the  sphere;  but  it  cannot  fathom  itself.  We 
at  once  get  beyond  soundings  when  we  launch  on 
the  intellectual  sea.  The  North  Pole  seems  to  resent 
our  search  after  its  mysteries ;  but  when  ships  sail 
across  where  the  meridians  meet,  there  will  be  a 
cover  of  Xature  still  remaining  which  no  explorer 
will  penetrate  or  break  up.  /  God  and  Heaven  sub 
mit  not  to  be  analyzed.  Our  faith  in  the  one,  our 
hope  of  the  other,  is  an  instinct  whose  root  is  in 
both.  But  as  abstractions  they  furnish  no  soil  for 
any  growth.  We  must  contemplate  them  with  our 
affections  in  the  living  creation,  and  in  the  concrete, 
before  we  can  realize  them  in  our  thought  or  ex 
press  them  in  our  life.  Sought  as  the  net  result  of 
our  logic,  they  vanish  into  thin  air.  With  his  imagi 
nation  for  an  eye,  Emerson  was  a  perceiver;  and 
he  respected  perception  in  himself  and  others,  being 
as  quick  and  glad  to  quote  their  perceptions  as  to 
announce  his  own.  He  notes,  cites,  and  lauds  every 
scrap  of  insight,  or  ripple  of  tidings  over  the  ocean 
that  heaves  from  the  unknown  shore  toward  which 
he  sails. 

10 


146  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMEESON. 


VI. 

EMERSON  AS  PREACHER. 

BY  MISS  E.   P.   PEABODY. 

WHEN  Mr.  Sanborn  wrote  to  me  that  I  was  ap 
pointed  to  this  lecture,  he  told  me  that  the  subject 
assigned  to  me  was  "  Mr.  Emerson  as  Preacher/'  — 
not  "  Mr.  Emerson  in  the  Pulpit/'  as  it  stands  in  the 
printed  programme.  But  I  hold  on  to  what  I  had 
immediately  agreed  to  do,  for  I  think  Mr.  Emerson 
was  always  pre-eminently  the  preacher  to  his  own 
generation  and  future  ones,  but  as  much —  if  not  more 
—  out  of  the  pulpit  as  in  it ;  faithful  unto  the  end 
to  his  early  chosen  profession  and  the  vows  of  his 
youth.  Whether  he  spoke  in  the  pulpit  or  lyceum 
chair,  or  to  friends  in  his  hospitable  parlor,  or  tete-a- 
tete  in  his  study,  or  in  his  favorite  walks  in  the  woods 
with  chosen  companions,  or  at  the  festive  gatherings 
of  scholars,  or  in  the  conventions  of  philanthropists, 
or  in  the  popular  assemblies  of  patriots  in  times 
and  on  occasions  that  try  men's  souls,  —  always  and 
everywhere  it  was  his  conscious  purpose  to  utter  a 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  It  was,  we  may  say,  a  fact 
of  his  pre-existence.  Looking  back  through  eight 


E^IERS0^7  AS  PREACHER.  147 

generations  of  Mr.  Emerson's  paternal  ancestry,  we 
find  there  were  preachers  in  every  one  of  them ;  the 
first  being  one  of  those  Independents  whom  Arch 
bishop  Laud  made  an  attempt  to  constrain  to  uni 
formity  by  dictating  to  him  how  he  should  regard 
the  Sabbath,  and  on  other  ritualistic  points,  which  the 
spirit  of  Luther's  Reformation  had  reserved  for  the 
private  judgment  of  redeemed  souls.  It  marks  the  in 
trinsic  conscience  of  Peter  Bulkeley,  that  he  would 
neither  conform  with  his  English  pulpit,  nor  relin 
quish  his  profession ;  for  he  was  a  man  of  fortune, 
living  on  his  hereditary  property,  and  rich  enough  to 
live  a  layman's  life  amid  the  luxury  of  a  scholar's 
leisure,  which  he  was  educated  to  value.  But  there 
was  that  spirit  of  consecration  to  his  calling  which 
seems  a  divine  predestination,  that  compelled  him  to 
leave  house  and  lands  and  turn  his  steps  towards  the 
Western  wilderness,  and  dare  all  the  dangers  and 
hardships  of  breaking  his  way  in  it,  to  found  a 
colony  which  was  to  be  an  independent  church 
among  the  Indians.  With  them  he  made  concord  — 
which  named  the  town  —  by  a  just  purchase  of  land, 
and  a  Christian  benevolence  to  them  that  was  indeed 
not  without  parallel  among  the  Independents.  These 
Independents  are  never  to  be  confounded  with  the 
later  Puritans,  who  organized  the  pharisaical  com 
munity  that  proudly  denied  the  right  of  citizenship 
to  Indians  and  all  others  not  church-members,  and 
also  initiated  a  military  policy  towards  the  former 
that  they  attempted  to  justify  to  themselves  from 


143  THE  GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

the  Bible  narrative  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan  by  the 
children  of  Israel,  —  not  discriminating  the  origi 
nally  friendly,  hospitable,  trustful,  and  moral  Indian 
from  the  heathen  of  ancient  Syria,  who  were  them 
selves  recent  invaders  of  that  country,  where  they 
had  established  the  cruellest  and  most  licentious  cus 
toms  known  in  all  antiquity;  "passing  their  chil 
dren  through  the  fire  to  Moloch,"  and  making  the 
most  vicious  practices  their  rites  of  worship. 

There  is  extant,  in  the  public  library  of  Concord, 
a  volume  of  the  writings  of  Peter  Bulkeley,  which, 
though  in  the  form  of  the  repulsive  theology  of  the 
day,  will  prove,  on  careful  analysis,  to  any  thoughtful 
reader,  that  Mr.  Emerson's  remote  ancestor  had  a  spirit 
like  his  own,  not  to  be  paralyzed  by  ecclesiasticism 
or  by  the  letter  of  sacred  Scripture,  but  intrinsically 
moral,  —  worshipping  God,  not  for  his  power,  but  for 
his  righteousness.  It  is  interesting  to  know  —  arid 
it  explains  Mr.  Emerson's  affectionate  relations  with 
Concord  —  that  many  of  the  old  families  of  Concord, 
besides  the  Emersons,  of  various  names,  are  descend 
ants  of  this  grand  old  Independent.  Mr.  Emerson's 
grandfather,  who  died  a  chaplain  of  the  Revolution 
ary  army,  consecrated  the  first  fight  of  our  war  for 
civil  independence  with  a  prayer  on  the  battle-field ; 
and  his  grandmother  watched  the  light  from  the 
study  window  of  the  Old  Manse.  Mr.  Emerson's 
father,  too,  became  minister  of  the  First  Church  of 
Boston,  in  the  meridian  of  his  life,  and  was  one  of 
the  earliest  leaders  of  the  liberal  movement  in  that 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  149 

city  which  ended  in  the  Unitarian  protest.  This 
second  Mr.  William  Emerson  left  a  family  of  sons 
to  the  care  of  a  mother  who  belonged  to  the  excep 
tionally  pious  race  of  Haskins,  strongly  inclined  to 
mysticism  in  religion;  and  by  this  temperament  the 
desirable  contrast  was  made  with  the  more  intel 
lectual  Emerson  temperament ;  so  that  the  union  of 
clear,  cold  intellect  and  warm,  religious  heart  in  the 
subject  of  our  discourse  seems  a  divine  providence. 
Considering  these  antecedents,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  these  brothers  all  naturally  gravitated  to  the  pro 
fession  of  preacher.  The  outlook  at  the  time,  however, 
was  not  alluring  to  scions  of  the  old  Independent. 
Although  William  Emerson,  the  eldest  brother,  went 
to  Germany  to  study  for  the  Christian  ministry,  he 
had  not  the  nerve  of  his  great  ancestor;  and,  on 
his  return,  shrank  from  the  battle  that  he  had  dis 
cernment  enough  to  see  was  impending,  and  took  up 
what  he  deemed  the  kindred  profession  of  law.  Ed 
ward  and  Charles  also  entered  the  latter  profession, 
with  the  most  serious  conceptions  of  its  ideal,  and 
neither  for  fame  nor  fortune,  —  both  being  strong 
Christians  of  the  heroic  old  type.  Our  Mr.  Emerson 
always  spoke  of  these  brothers  as  his  spiritual  and 
intellectual  superiors ;  but  I  was  told,  by  one  who 
knew  them  all  intimately,  that  both  of  them  regarded 
him  as  the  high-priest  of  their  Holy  of  holies,  rever 
encing  his  every  intuition  as  a  sacred  oracle.  Mr. 
Emerson's  poem,  entitled  "  The  Dirge,"  is  the  memo 
rial  of  this  rare  fraternal  relation. 


150  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

My  own  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Emerson  dated  from 
1822,  when  I  took  a  few  private  lessons  from  him  in 
Greek,  —  a  study  that  he  was  at  the  time  immersed 
in,  having  just  graduated  from  Harvard  University, 
and  being  an  assistant  in  the  young  ladies'  school 
kept  in  his  mother's  house  in  Federal  Street  by  his 
brother  William.  Mr.  Conway  mentions  this  cir 
cumstance  in  his  very  beautiful  apotheosis  of  Mr. 
Emerson;  and,  as  usual,  entirely  transforms,  by  his 
imaginative  memory,  something  I  probably  did  tell 
him,  which  I  will  take  leave  to  repeat  here,  as  I  have 
often  told  it  myself.  It  is  true  that  both  of  us 
were  very  shy  (Mr.  Emerson  then  nineteen  and  I 
eighteen  years  old),  and  we  did  not  get  into  a  chat 
ting  acquaintance,  but  sat  opposite  each  other  at  the 
study  table,  not  lifting  our  eyes  from  our  books,  —  I 
reciting  the  poems  of  the  "  Gra3ca  Majora,"  and  he 
commenting  and  elucidating  in  the  most  instructive 
manner ;  and  we  were  quite  too  much  afraid  of  each 
other  to  venture  any  other  conversation.  When 
about  to  leave  the  city  for  what  proved  a  two  years' 
sojourn  on  the  Kennebec,  I  sent  for  his  bill,  through 
his  cousin  George  B.  Emerson,  who  had  introduced 
him  to  me.  He  came  with  that  gentleman  to  say 
that  he  had  no  bill  to  render,  for  he  found  he  could 
teach  me  nothing.  It  was  then  that,  protected  by 
his  cousin's  presence,  he  ventured  to  speak  freely ; 
and  he  poured  out  quite  a  stream  of  eloquence  in 
praise  of  Mr.  Edward  Everett's  oratory,  of  which  I 
happened  to  express  my  admiration,  and  was  de- 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  151 

lighted  to  find  him  as  great  an  admirer  of  it  as  I  was. 
Mr.  Everett  had  just  returned  from  Europe,  and  was 
lecturing  in  Boston  on  the  panorama  of  Athens, 
which  Mr.  Theodore  Lyman  had  presented  to  Har 
vard  College.  After  this  our  acquaintance  lapsed 
for  ten  years,  comprehending  all  the  time  Mr.  Emer 
son  was  studying  divinity  and  preaching  at  the 
Second  Church  in  Boston.  Then  lie  resumed  it  (in 
1833)  on  occasion  of  reading  a  little  paper  of  mine 
which  his  aunt,  Miss  Mary  Emerson,  —  who  was  my 
great  friend,  and  bent  on  bringing  us  into  intimate 
acquaintance,  —  had  found  among  some  loose  papers 
of  a  journal  of  thoughts  I  fitfully  kept,  on  the  same 
principle  that  Mr.  Emerson  kept  a  journal  all  his  life. 
This  paper  was  a  very  free  paraphrase  of  the  lirst 
chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  Saint  John,  from  the  first  verse 
to  the  fourteenth  inclusive,  in  which  I  translated  the 
word  Logos  into  "  moral  truth-speaking,"  first  by  the 
things  of  Nature,  then  by  the  processes  of  conscious 
life  and  reason,  etc. 

He  was  on  the  eve  of  his  first  voyage  to  Europe, 
soon  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife  and  the  re- 
linquishment  of  his  Boston  pulpit.  He  was  at  the 
time  too  feeble  in  health  to  make  visits,  and  sent 
to  me  to  come  to  his  house  in  Chardon  Street,  where 
I  found  him  quite  absorbed  in  Goethe  and  Caiiyle ; 
but  he  immediately  turned  his  attention  to  Saint 
John's  grand  peroration,  and  we  discussed  every 
phrase  of  it.  It  was  one  of  those  conversations 
which  "  make  the  soul,"  to  use  a  favorite  expres- 


152  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

sion  of  his  aunt  Mary's.  It  was,  therefore,  on  the 
highest  plane  of  human  thought  that  we  first  met, 
our  theme  being  the  Eternal  Relations  of  God, 
Nature,  and  Man ;  beginning  an  intercourse  that 
continued  there  with  more  or  less  interval  during 
his  lifetime. 

I  had  never  heard  Mr.  Emerson  preach  while  he 
was  settled  in  Boston,  for  I  was  then  always  attend 
ing  Dr.  Channing's  church,  and  so  I  did  not  learn 
the  exceptional  character  of  his  preaching.  My 
attention  was  first  drawn  to  it  by  hearing  that  he  had 
preached  the  sermon  on  the  Lord's  Supper  that  led 
to  the  loss  of  his  pulpit.  I  heard  of  this  from  Dr. 
Charming,  who  at  the  same  time  expressed  immense 
interest  in  so  striking  a  proof  of  the  moral  independ 
ence  as  well  as  profound  sincerity  of  the  act.  I 
remember  he  said  he  expected  great  things  of  him  in 
future.  He  then  told  me  that  Mr.  Emerson  had,  as 
was  the  custom  of  that  day,  put  his  name  with  him 
as  a  student  when  he  began  his  study  of  divinity ; 
but  he  had  not  become  intimate  with  him,  because 
he  found,  on  talking  with  him,  that  he  was  quite 
competent  to  be  his  own  guide,  so  far  as  human 
teaching  could  go.  Dr.  Chanuing  himself  had  no 
desire  to  be  Rabbi  to  any  individual,  nor  a  leader  in 
the  Church.  He  thought,  as  Mr.  Emerson  did,  that 
one's  own  intellect  and  conscience,  used  reverently, 
were  the  best  leaders  of  the  spirit  of  a  man  into  com 
munion  with  the  God  of  Truth. 

Immediately   after    Mr.    Emerson's    return   from 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  153 

Europe,  hearing  he  was  to  preach  a  sermon  in  his 
old  pulpit,  on  occasion  of  the  death  of  his  friend  Mr. 
Sampson  (the  most  intimate  friend  he  had  had  in 
his  parish),  I  went  to  hear  him.  The  sermon  was  a 
word-portrait  of  Mr.  Sampson,  which  estimated  him 
as  the  ideal  Christian  merchant.  It  was  a  wonderful 
discourse,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  who  was  familiar  with, 
and  had  grown  up  on,  the  liveliest  preaching  of  the 
time, — that  of  the  leading  Unitarians  in  the  first  vital 
vigor  of  their  honest  protest  against  the  current  Tri- 
theisrn  (for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  had  sunk  to 
that  in  all  the  churches,  whether  old  Congregational, 
Baptist,  or  Episcopal). 

He  began  with  saying  that  we  might  well  doubt 
whether,  if  we  had  been  contemporaries  with  Plato, 
we  had  found  him  out,  if  we  did  not  find  out  in  our 
own  time  some  individuals  who,  like  Plato,  were  in 
manifest  living  relation  with  the  Infinite  Mind  in 
thought,  or  heart,  or  practical  life.  In  the  darkest 
times  there  were  "  seven  thousand  men  in  Israel  who 
had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal."  There  was  even 
now  some  open  vision.  Mr.  Sampson  had  this  open 
vision ;  and  he  invited  his  audience  to  contemplate 
with  him  his  "conversation  in  the  world,"  more 
especially  in  his  business  relations ;  for  in  business, 
he  said,  as  well  as  on  the  tower  of  contemplation, 
men  could  live  with  God  face  to  face.1 

1  When,  soon  after  its  delivery,  I  bogged  Mr.  Emerson  to  pub 
lish  this  sermon,  which,  it  seemed  to  me,  would  immediately  trans 
form  and  elevate  the  practices  of  the  business  world  in  Boston,  he 


154  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

From  this  time  forth  I  never  omitted  an  oppor 
tunity  of  hearing  Mr.  Emerson  preach.  I  went  out 
from  Boston  to  East  Lexington  to  do  so  when  I 
learned  he  was  preaching  there ;  and  subsequently, 
when  visiting  at  his  house,  as  I  frequently  did  in 
the  first  six  years  of  his  married  life,  I  sought  and 
obtained  leave  to  read  the  sermons  he  had  in  manu 
script.  And  I  am  free  to  affirm  that  they  were  all 
as  truly  transcendental  as  any  of  his  later  lectures 
and  writings  in  prose  or  verse ;  if  a  volume  of 
them  could  be  printed  to-day  in  their  own  form,  it 
would  interpret  his  later  revelations,  of  which  they 
are  but  a  varied  expression,  and  be  of  great  advan 
tage  to  a  certain  class  of  minds.  I  remember  one 
upon  the  text,  "We  shall  all  appear  before  the 
judgment-seat  of  Christ,"  which,  if  it  could  be  read 
in  this  place  to-day,  would,  better  than  all  my  poor 
words,  convey  the  view  I  would  fain  give  of  Mr. 
Emerson  as  always  the  preacher  of  the  eternal  life, 
entirely  emancipated  from  the  "  letter  which  killeth," 
and  minister  of  the  Spirit  which  maketh  alive.  It 
showed  his  audience,  and  would  show  any  reader  of 
it,  that  we  all  are  always  before  the  judgment-seat 
of  Christ,  —  always  God  is  judging  the  world  and 
passing  sentence  on  every  man,  and  he  may  hear  it 
if  he  be  sincere.  There  is  no  valid  excuse  for  want 
of  self-knowledge.  The  judgment-seat  of  Christ  is 

told  me  he  had  given  it  to  Mrs.  Sampson.  I  trust  that  Mr.  Cabot 
will  look  it  up  and  give  it  to  the  public  even  now  ;  for,  like  every 
thing  else  of  Mr.  Emerson's,  it  is  of  perennial  interest. 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  155 

within  each  of  us,  where  we  shall  find  it  if  we  look 
for  it  earnestly,  instead  of  the  ipse  clixit  of  the  hour. 

I  wish  I  had  time  to  speak  of  many  other  dis 
courses  that  are  fresh  in  my  memory  after  more  than 
forty  years.  In  reading  and  comparing  Mr.  Emer 
son's  two  discourses,  preached  at  forty  years'  inter 
val,  —  the  one  the  Divinity  Hall  Address,  given  in 
1838  ;  the  other  bearing  the  title  of  "  The  Preacher," 
in  1880,  —  it  may  be  plainly  seen  that  he  was  al 
ways  a  preacher  of  the  Christ  whose  "  glory  was  with 
the  Father  before  the  world  was,"  "  the  same  yester 
day,  to-day,  and  forever."  But,  from  first  to  last,  he 
never  shut  in  his  vision  of  the  living  God  to  the 
limitations  of  his  own  or  any  other  individual  con 
ception  ;  for  he  dwelt  and  spoke  in  that  temple  of 
the  moral  sentiment  in  which  all  men  commune 
with  all  other  men  as  children  of  a  common,  impar 
tial  Father  of  the  human  race,  and  which,  in  the 
language  of  the  old  school-men,  is  "  the  Son,"  to 
whom  "the  Father  giveth  to  have  life  in  himself," 
in  order  that  He  may  "  behold  His  own  glory  in  his 
face."  Mr.  Emerson  understood  and  believed  with 
Etoejifil  —  the  cosmopolite  prophet  of  the  nineteenth 
century  —  what  Jesus  meant  when  he  said  that 
"whoever  receiveth  a  little  child  in  my  name  re- 
ceiveth  me,  and  whoever  receiveth  me  receiveth 
Him  that  sent  me." *  Jesus  of  Xazareth  realized  to 

1  He  says,  in  one  of  his  Essays,  "Infancy  is  a  perpetual  Mes 
siah,  which  comes  into  the  arms  of  fallen  men,  and  pleads  with 
them  to  return  to  Paradise." 


156  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

him  "  the  divinity  that  is  in  all  men,"  —  the  divinity 
that  first  appears  in  the  moral  sentiment.  He  de 
clares,  in  the  Divinity  Hall  Address,  that  "  the  moral 
sentiment  is  the  essence  of  all  religion ;  for,"  as 
he  goes  on  to  explain,  "if  a  man  is  at  heart  just, 
then  in  so  far  is  he  God;  the  immortality  of  God, 
the  majesty  of  God,  do  enter  into  that  man  with 
justice." 

I  would  I  had  space  to  copy  out  the  whole  of  that 
psean  of  praise  to  God  living  in  the  moral  law,  which 
makes  the  introduction  to  that  wonderful  discourse, 
whose  eloquence  is  characteristic  of  him,  —  not  like 
the  whirlwind,  the  earthquake,  or  the  fire,  but  the 
still,  small  voice,  on  hearing  which  Elijah  veiled  his 
face  and  worshipped.  Who  reads  it  with  under 
standing  will  agree  that  Professor  Thayer  has  well 
said :  "  There  is  in  Emerson  an  inflaming  religious 
quality  which  searches  the  soul  of  his  readers  with 
singular  power.  His  morals  are  not  merely  morals ; 
they  are  morals  on  fire." 

But  to  go  back  a  little.  In  1835  or  1836,  when 
he  was  still  supplying  the  pulpit  at  East  Lexington, 
it  was  my  privilege  to  make  frequent  visits  to  his 
house  in  Concord,  and  he  would  always  invite  me 
to  go  down  with  him  in  his  chaise  on  Sundays.  In 
one  of  these  precious  seasons  for  conversation,  as 
we  were  returning  to  Concord,  I  repeated  to  him 
the  reply  of  an  unconsciously  wise  and  pious  woman 
of  the  congregation,  with  whom  I  had  walked  to 
the  afternoon  meeting,  and  had  asked  her  why  the 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  157 

society  did  not  call  to  settle  over  them  an  eminent 
preacher  that  Mr.  Emerson  had  sent  in  bis  stead  on  a 
previous  Sunday,  secretly  hoping  that  they  would  do 
so,  for  he  craved  him  as  a  near  neighbor.  "  Oh,  Miss 
Peahody,"  her  words  were,  "  we  are  a  very  simple 
people  here  ;  we  cannot  understand  anybody  but  Mr. 
Emerson."  "There  is  a  ' tell'  for  a  Transcendentalist," 
said  I  to  him  playfully,  thinking  he  would  laugh  in 
contrasting  it  with  the  current  cant  in  Boston  among 
the  Philistines,  who  said  they  "  could  not  understand 
Mr.  Emerson."  But  he  did  not  laugh.  On  the  con 
trary,  with  an  accent  that  was  almost  pathetic,  he 
replied,  "  If  I  had  not  been  cut  off  untimely  in  the 
pulpit,  perhaps  I  might  have  made  something  of  the 
sermon."  "  It  is  evident  from  this  attentive  Lexing 
ton  audience,"  I  said,  "  that  you  have  already  made 
something  of  the  sermon."  "  Did  you  observe,"  he 
replied,  "  that  row  of  venerable,  earnest  faces  of  old 
men  who  sit  just  in  front  of  the  platform  ?  It  would 
be  rather  difficult  to  be  frivolous  when  speaking  to 
them.  But  in  the  back  part  of  the  hall  there  were 
some  young  men  turning  over  the  leaves  of  a  hymn- 
book.  Xo  preacher  can  be  satisfied  with  himself 
when  he  leaves  any  of  his  audience  at  leisure  to  turn 
over  the  leaves  of  a  book."  "  That  is  a  high  stand 
ard,"  I  replied.  And  soon  he  added,  in  a  livelier 
tone,  "  Henceforth  the  lycenm  chair  must  be  my  pul 
pit.  The  word  of  moral  truth  makes  one  of  any 
place."  And  we  both  fell  into  silence  for  the  re 
mainder  of  our  drive,  as  I  went  back  in  thought  to 


158  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

that  old  conversation  in  Chardon  Street,  on  the  proem 
of  Saint  John's  Gospel. 

I  think  I  have  shown  you  reason  to  agree  with,  me 
that  it  was  Mr.  Emerson's  conscious  life-purpose  to 
minister  the  Living  Spirit,  whom  he  sought  alike 
in  the  material  universe  and  in  human  history,  in 
literature  and  in  ethics,  in  art,  and,  above  all,  in  his 
own  heart  and  imagination.  In  every  form  of  his 
utterance  he  touched  the  profound  depth  of  poetry, 
whether  he  sung  in  verse  or  spoke  in  prose.  Much 
of  his  prose  is  as  melodious  as  his  verse,  —  witness 
his  first  publication  on  "  Nature,"  his  lecture  on  the 
"  Method  of  Nature,"  and  the  opening,  and  indeed 
the  whole,  of  his  Address  at  Divinity  Hall,  already 
alluded  to,^vhich  was  not  to  me  alone  the  apocalypse 
of  our  Transcendental  era  in  Boston.  For,  if  the  life 
less  understanding  of  the  day  mistook  it  for  a  denial 
of  Christ,  we  now  see  that  upon  those  whose  hearts 
"the  forms  of  young  imagination  had  kept  pure," 
and  whom  the  pulpit  entirely  ignored  or  seldom 
addressed,  it  flashed  the  first  light  of  the  revelation 
of  "  the  friend  of  man,"  whom  he  then  affirmed  that 
an  effete  ecclesiasticism  had  made  "the  enemy  of 
man." 

And  here  I  take  leave  to  introduce  another  per 
sonal  reminiscence.  I  had  the  happiness  of  listening 
to  this  truly  prophetic  discourse  ;  and  when,  soon 
after,  he  was  correcting  the  proof-sheets  of  it  for 
the  press,  I  was  visiting  at  his  house.  One  day  he 
came  from  his  study  into  the  room  where  his  wife 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  159 

and  myself  were  sitting  at  our  needle-work,  and  said, 
"How  does  this  strike  your  Hebrew  souls?"  pro 
ceeding  to  read  the  paragraph  containing  the  above 
expression,  which  begins  with  the  words,  "  This 
Eastern  monarchy  of  a  Christianity,"  etc.  I  said, 
"  You  will  put  a  capital  '  F '  to  the  word  '  friend  '  ?  " 
He  seemed  to  reflect  a  few  moments,  and  then  de 
liberately  replied,  "  No ;  directly  I  put  that  capital 
'  F '  my  readers  go  to  sleep  ! " 

He  then  went  on  to  read  another  paragraph,  which 
he  remarked  he  had  omitted  to  deliver  because  he 
thought  he  "  was  getting  too  long."  It  came  imme 
diately  after  the  paragraph  in  which  he  accused  the 
"historical  Christianity"  of  corrupting  all  attempts  to 
communicate  living  religion,  "  making  Christianity  a 
mythus,  and  founding  the  Church  not  on  Jesus'  prin 
ciples,  but  on  his  tropes,"  and  subordinating  all  in 
dividual  natures  to  that  of  Jesus,  "  according  to  the 
portrait  the  vulgar  drew  of  him." 

I  can  recall  only  one  word  of  this  omitted  para 
graph,  but  remember  perfectly  the  sense.  It  was  a 
caveat  anticipating  the  development  of  a  new  party, 
only  half  understanding  him,  which  would  fall  into 
what  he  called  the  "  puppyism  "  of  a  criticism  irrev 
erent  of  the  person  of  Jesus.  And  this  party  did 
soon  appear,  and  has  not  entirely  passed  away  yet ; 
some  of  our  free  religionists  being  guilty  of  this 
lack  of  just  conception  of  "  the  one  man  who,  alone 
in  all  history,"  as  Mr.  Emerson  says,  "  estimated  the 
greatness  of  man !  One  man  was  true  to  what  is  in 


160  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

you  and  me.  He  saw  that  God  incarnated  himself 
in  man ;  and  in  the  ecstasy  of  a  sublime  emotion 
affirmed,  '  through  me  God  acts,  through  me  God 
speaks ;  would  you  see  God,  see  me.'  "  I  said,  inter 
rogatively,  "  You  will  certainly  print  that  passage, 
for  it  will  convict  Mr.  Ware  of  misunderstanding 
and  so  misrepresenting  you  in  his  sermon."  (Mr. 
Henry  Ware  had  just  published  a  sermon  contro 
verting,  as  he  thought,  the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Emer 
son's  Address.)  This  was  an  unlucky  suggestion  of 
mine ;  for,  after  a  moment's  silence,  lie  replied  :  "  No, 
it  would  be  shabby  to  spring  upon  Mr.  Ware  this 
passage  now.  I  must  abide  by  what  I  delivered,  what 
ever  was  its  lack  of  full  expression."  I  was  struck 
silent  at  the  moment  by  this  exhibition  of  an  exqui 
site  gentlemanly  loyalty,  the  very  poetry  of  self- 
respect  and  politeness.  But  some  months  later,  irri 
tated  by  many  exhibitions  of  the  "  puppyism  "  he 
had  predicted,  and  which  stupidly  professed  itself  to 
be  Emersonian,  I  said  to  him,  "  Are  you  quite  sure 
you  did  not  sacrifice  a  greater  duty  to  a  less,  when 
you  decided  not  to  publish  that  paragraph  which 
defined  your  exact  meaning,  lest  it  should  put  Mr. 
Ware  in  the  awkward  predicament  of  having  fought 
a  shadow  ?  "  He  replied,  deliberately  but  emphati 
cally,  "  No."  I  wish  I  could  remember  to  repeat  in  its 
exact  words  the  conversation  that  followed.  I  know 
he  expressed  that  gentlemanly  courtesy  was  simply 
social  justice,  and  that  anxiety  to  be  personally  under 
stood,  rather  than  to  have  the  truth  understood,  was 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  161 

the  special  weakness  of  the  hour.  Apology,  and  even 
explanation,  were  the  blunders  of  egotism.  "Words 
were  often  more  deceptive  than  silence,  because  of 
the  meanings  attached  to  them  by  a  public  which  had 
ceased  to  think.  He  ended  the  conversation  by  say 
ing,  in  illustration  of  his  meaning,  "  Whoever  would 
preach  Christ  in  these  times  must  say  nothing  about 
him  1 "  These  words,  uttered  in  that  low  tone  of  the 
moral  imperative,  which  all  who  heard  his  first  lec 
tures  must  remember,  let  me  completely  into  the 
secret  of  his  method,  giving  me  the  key  to  unlock 
the  meaning  alike  of  what  he  said  and  what  he  did 
not  say.  As  I  pondered  on  it  that  day,  I  called  to 
mind  the  words  of  Jesus  as  reported  by  Saint  John 
from  his  discourse  at  the  last  supper  :  "  It  is  expe 
dient  for  you  that  I  go  away  from  you ;  unless  I  go 
away,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  which  is  the  Comforter,  will 
not  come  unto  you." 

"Whether  Mr.  Emerson  is  to  be  followed  by  others 
in  this  severe  method  of  preaching  the  Christ  by 
devout  silence,  may  perhaps  be  a  question.  The  late 
Mr.  Maurice,  who  suffered  from  the  ecclesiastical  ver 
bosity  and  ritual  trifling  of  his  time  a  lifelong  mar- 

*/  O  O 

tyrdom,  as  the  recently  published  memoirs  of  him 
reveal,  answered  a  similar  question  by  dropping  from 
his  vocabulary  the  word  Christianity,  seeing  it  to  be 
a  human  abstraction  merely,  confusing  those  seeking 
the  secret  of  life  with  as  many  significations  as  there 
are  denominations  in  the  Church,  and  individual 
thinkers ;  therefore  leading  away  from  that  divine 


o 

11 


162  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

life  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ  par  eminence.  Both 
Maurice  and  his  most  effective  apostle,  George  Mac- 
donald,  always  say  Christ,  instead  of  Christianity, 
when  they  would  set  forth  the  true  goal  of  human 
living,  as  the  deliverer  from  the  vicious  subjectivity 
of  the  mere  thinker  which  dries  up  the  fountains  of 
life.  With  the  same  intent  Mr.  Emerson  said  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  the  individual  to  affirm  all  that 
his  experience  had  proved  to  be  true,  and  never  to 
be  satisfied  short  of  a  generalization  covering  a  prin 
ciple.  He  had  the  faith  that  our  growing  expe 
rience  would  contain  the  solution  of  all  questions, 
the  consummation  of  all  hopes,  the  satisfaction  of 
all  unselfish  desires,  inasmuch  as  the  social  law 
was  intercommunication  of  experiences  forevermore. 
His  humility  wras  a  quickening  hope,  not  a  weak 
agnosticism,  —  the  humility  of  a  son  of  God  who 
feels  that  all  that  his  Father  has  will  duly  become 
his.  He  never  presumes  to  call  the  Unknown  un 
knowable. 

But  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  "golden  si 
lence  "  which  heightened  the  effect  of  Mr.  Emerson's 
"  silvern  speech,"  when  he  preached  those  truths  that 
he  felt  were  hidden  from  his  times  by  the  prevalent 
technics  of  the  pulpit,  was  a  prudential  expedient 
that  he  contrived  to  meet  a  practical  difficulty :  it 
came  from  something  deeper  and  higher,  that  char 
acterized  his  individuality  ;  it  was  the  unforgotten 
instinct  of  the  child,  who  often  cannot  utter  the 
name  of  God,  precisely  because  he  sees  Him  with 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  163 

the  spiritual  eye  of  pre-existence.  I  heard  Mr.  Emer 
son  once  say  to  Mr.  Orestes  A.  Brownson,  who  was 
pressing  on  him  the  duty  of  explanation,  "  I  feel 
myself  to  be  in  the  midst  of  a  truth  I  do  not  com 
prehend,  but  which  comprehends  me."  It  was  this 
truth  before  which  he  bowed  with  the  devoutness 
which  hushes  the  Hindoo  worshipper  to  the  utter 
ance  of  the  mystic  Om;  which  makes  the  Hebrew, 
when  in  the  books  of  the  Law  and  Prophets  he 
comes  to  the  word  Jehovah  (which  means  was  and  is 
and  is  to  come,  translated  in  the  Pentateuch  "the 
Lord  God,"  and  in  the  Septnagint  "  the  Eternal "),  to 
stop  and  bow  in  silence ;  which  impels  a  worshipper 
to  fall  on  his  face  and  shut  out  the  light  (that  is 
defined  by  Hegel  as  "  the  presence  of  the  L'niversal 
at  the  particular,"  whether  we  mean  material  light, 
or  Eeason  with  its  relative  poles) ;  which  made  the 
army  of  the  angels  in  Milton's  magnificent  fable 
"  veil  their  faces  with  their  wings  "  when  the  chariot 
of  Christ  rolled  in  a  bloodless  victory  over  the  battle 
field  of  heaven,  and  found  no  contending  armies,  for 
the  enemy  had  vanished  as  soon  as  "  far-off  his  com 
ing  shone."  In  Mr.  Emerson,  the  Infinite  of  Being  was 
an  intuition  "  beyond  the  reach  of  thought,"  which  is 
the  act  of  the  growing  understanding,  likened  by  him 
self  to  a  man  going  out  in  a  dark  night  with  a  far 
thing  candle  to  find  something.  What  he  discovered 
with  his  farthing  candle  he  declared,  in  words  that 
shine  and  words  that  burn,  putting  his  readers  at  a 
stand-point  open  on  all  sides  to  the  sky  of  the  Uni- 


164  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

versal  Truth,  which  comprehends  the  seer  and  the  seen 
too ;  and  then,  with  the  delicate  reserve  of  a  spiritual 
modesty  which  never  says  "  I,"  he  pauses,  to  let  his 
hearer  or  reader  supply  the  ellipses,  not  attempting 
to  utter  the  unutterable,  which  we  nevertheless  know 
as  we  know  the  fixed  stars,  wondering  what  they  are. 
Such  silence  is  eloquent. 

' '  The  silent  organ  loudest  chants 
The  master's  requiem." 

But  the  individual's  right  of  reserve  Mr.  Emerson 
severely  limited  to  boundaries  of  his  experience.  He 
recognized  the  duty  of  every  individual,  who  is  a 
fraction  of  his  generation,  on  which  is  doubtless  laid 
the  obligation  to  transmit  what  it  has  received  from 
foregone  generations,  augmented  by  what  he  has 
gained  from  his  own  experience  in  its  characteristic 
individuality ;  but  this  truth  could  only  be  expressed 
in  words  illuminated  by  action  strictly  according  to 
the  nature  of  things,  —  a  phrase  lie  generally  used  for 
action  according  to  the  will  of  God ;  for  he  avoided 
using  words  whose  meaning  lie  agreed  with  and  even 
reverenced,  when  their  original  lustre  had  been  lost 
by  long  lying  in  the  dusty  ruts  of  the  highways  of 
custom. 

And  no  more  than  Jesus,  who  "without  a  para 
ble  opened  not  his  mouth,"  did  Mr.  Emerson  preach 
merely  in  the  pulpit  form  of  sermons.  He  preached 
still  more  in  song,  when  his  intellect,  as  well  as 
morals,  is  seen  to  be  on  fire,  in  worship.  Witness 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  165 

the  ft  Ode  to  Beauty."  Beauty  is  to  him  no  abstrac 
tion  made  by  his  own  mind  from  lovely  concrete 
forms,  but  the  "  Infinite  One  "  — 

"  gliding  through  the  sea  of  form, 
Like  the  lightning  through  the  storm, 
Somewhat  not  to  be  possessed, 
Somewhat  not  to  be  caressed  ;  " 

to  whom,  in  a  transport  of  devout  ecstasy,  he  prays, 

"  Dread  Power,  but  dear 

If  God  thou  be, 
Unmake  nie  quite, 

Or  give  thyself  to  me  !  " 

And  again,  in  "  The  Problem."  where  he  sings  of  the 
genesis,  not  of  Nature's  "  beauteous  forms  "  alone,  but 
of  the  mind's  creations,  —  the  great  sculptures  of 
antiquity,  the  architectures  of  Egypt,  Greece,  Borne, 
and  the  Middle  Ages,  —  "  the  litanies  of  nations,"  "  the 
canticles  of  love  and  woe,"  and  all  the  wonders  that 
"  rise  in  upper  air  " 

"  Out  of  thought's  interior  sphere." 

For  the  Infinite  Goodness  and  the  Infinite  Beauty  live 
also  as  the  Infinite  Truth,  whose  coming  "  full  circle  " 
he  celebrates  in  the  "Uriel,"  —  another  anthem  of 
praise  to  Him  who  is  to  be  worshipped  with  all  the 
mind  as  well  as  heart  and  miijht ;  and  all  three  are 

O  ' 

summed  in  the  "  Ode  to  Bacchus  "  (the  Greek  Bacchus, 
not  the  Roman),  in  which  he  so  importunately  prays 


166  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

to  be  "  given  to  drink  "  of  the  "  wine  that  never  grew 
in  the  belly  of  the  grape  : " 

"  Wine  of  wine, 
Blood  of  the  world, 
Form  of  forms,  and  mould  of  statures, 
That  I,  intoxicated, 
And  by  the  draught  assimilated, 
May  float  at  pleasure  through  all  natures, 
The  bird-language  rightly  spell, 
And  that  which  roses  say  so  well. 


"  Pour,  Bacchus  !  the  remembering  wine  ; 
Retrieve  the  loss  of  me  and  mine  ! 
Vine  for  vine  be  antidote, 
And  the  grape  requite  the  lote  ! 
Haste  to  cure  the  old  despair,  — 
Reason  in  Nature's  lotus  drenched, 
The  memory  of  ages  quenched  ; 
Give  them  again  to  shine  ; 
Let  wine  repair  what  this  undid  ; 
And  where  the  infection  slid, 
A  dazzling  memory  revive  ; 
Refresh  the  faded  tints, 
Recut  the  aged  prints, 
And  write  my  old  adventures  with  the  pen 
"Which  on  the  first  day  drew, 
Upon  the  tablets  blue, 
The  dancing  Pleiads  and  eternal  men." 

And  again  in  the  "  Woodnotes,"  when  he  hears  the 
pine-tree  declare  :  — 

"  Ever  fresh  the  broad  creation, 
A  divine  improvisation, 
From  the  heart  of  God  proceeds, 
A  single  will,  a  million  deeds. 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  167 

Once  slept  the  world  an  egg  of  stone, 
And  pulse  and  sound  and  light  had  none  ; 
And  God  said,  '  Throb  ! '  and  there  was  motion, 
And  the  vast  mass  became  vast  ocean, 


Pouring  of  his  power  the  wine 

To  every  age,  to  every  race  ; 

Unto  every  race  and  age 

He  emptieth  the  beverage  ; 

Unto  each  and  unto  all, 

Maker  and  original. 

The  world  is  the  ring  of  his  spells, 

And  the  play  of  his  miracles. 

As  he  giveth  all  to  drink, 

Thus  or  thus  they  are  and  think. 

He  giveth  little,  he  giveth  much, 

To  make  them  several  or  such. 

"With  one  drop  sheds  form  and  feature, 

With  the  second  special  nature  ; 

The  third  adds  heat's  indulgent  spark  ; 

The  fourth  gives  light  which  eats  the  dark  ; 

In  the  fifth  drop  himself  he  flings, 

And  conscious  Law  is  King  of  kings." 

Time  would  fail  me  to  give  specimens  of  all  the 
utterances  of  this  tongue  of  fire,  which  retrieves 
the  disastrous  confusion  of  the  old  Babel,  that  has 
corrupted  by  dividing  the  religion  of  nations,  and 
eclipsed  the  Eternal  Christ  almost  totally ;  while  Mr. 
Emerson  in  his  use  of  the  words  Brahrn,  Pan,  Apollo, 
the  Greek  Bacchus,  Uriel,  and  other  burning  per 
sonifications  of  the  Persian  Muse,  revivifies  the  Pen 
tecostal  Muse  and  brings  home  to  the  imagination 
of  this  duller  modern  time  the  various  attributes  of 
the  Eternal  Spirit;  making  a  language  of  his  own, 


168  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

that  creates  unity  of  understanding  in  all  who  speak 
the  differing  and  therefore  imperfect  languages  of 
man  in  their  partial  creeds.  Do  we  not  hear  this  in 
the  great  lyric  utterances  I  have  already  recited  ? 
To  which  I  must  add,  from  "  The  Sphinx,"  the 
answer  of  the  poet  to  her  conundrum :  — 

"  Deep  love  lieth  under 

These  pictures  of  time  ; 
They  fade  in  the  light  of 
Their  meaning  sublime  ! 

"  The  fiend  that  man  harries 

Is  love  of  the  Best  ; 
Yawns  the  pit  of  the  Dragon 

Lit  by  rays  from  the  Blest ; 
The  Lethe  of  Nature 

Can't  trance  him  again, 
"Whose  soul  sees  the  Perfect, 

"Which  his  eyes  seek  in  vain. 

"Profounder,  profounder, 

Man's  spirit  must  dive  ; 
To  his  aye-rolling  orbit 

No  goal  will  arrive  ; 
The  heavens  that  now  draw  him 

"With  sweetness  untold, 
Once  found,  —  for  new  heavens 

He  spurneth  the  old. 

"  Pride  ruined  the  angels, 

Their  shame  them  restores  ; 
JAnd  the  joy  that  is  sweetest 
'     Lurks  in  stings  of  remorse." 

Do  not  these  last  two  lines  contain  the  deepest 
secret  of  the   Christ  that  Jesus   revealed, —  God's 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  169 

forgiveness  of  sin,  which  justifies  the  supreme  gift 
of  the  freedom  to  will,  through  which  man  may  be 
lifted  into  the  divine  sonship,  eternal  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  —  a  vast  overpayment  even  for  the  expe 
rience  of  sin,  which  being  overcome,  qualities  us  to 
seek  and  save  others  ? 

"  Draw  if  thou  canst  the  mystic  line 
Severing  rightly  his  from  thine, 
Which  is  human,  which  divine." 

I  will  not  attempt  to  read  the  whole  of  what  is  to 
me  the  most  profoundly  touching  of  all  Emerson's 
divine  songs,  the  "  deep  Heart's "  reply  in  the 
"  Threnody,"  when  he  himself  came  up  from  the  most 
transforming  personal  experience  of  his  life,  ex 
pressed  in  that  wild  wail  over  the  child  lost  to  him 
for  "  the  forever  of  this  world,"  that  for  a  long  time 
plunged  him  into  a  deep  of  sorrow  of  which  the 
first  part  of  the  poem  is  the  all  but  unequalled 
expression.  But  at  length  he  found  what  fully 
developed  the  human  tenderness,  that  gave  the  last 
divine  touch  to  the  decline  of  his  life.  I  have  said 
that  this  rich  strain  of  poetry  was  of  all  his  utter 
ances  the  most  touching  to  me.  For  several  years 
before  this  season  of  his  personal  experience  he  was 
struggling  to  bear  the  loss  of  his  brother  Charles 
with  the  dignity  of  a  man.  To  the  question  I  had  put 
to  him,  "  Is  there  not  something  in  God  correspond 
ing  to  and  justifying  this  human  sensibility?5'  he 
had  replied,  "  Xo  ! "  And  at  that  period  of  his  life 


170  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

he  seemed  to  measure  spiritual  strength  by  a  man's 
stoical  denial  of  the  fact  of  pain.  His  intellectual 
fire  could  not  smelt  the  ore  of  human  suffering.  A 
gentleman  who  stood  with  him  at  his  brother 
Charles's  grave,  said  he  turned  away  from  it  with 
the  words,  "  Death  is  an  absurdity  !  " 

It  required  nothing  short  of  a  father's  love  to 
open  his  ear  to  the  tender  voice  of  the  Divine 
Father,  who  sung  in  his  bereaved  heart  this  healing 
song :  — 

"  I  came  to  thee,  as  to  a  friend, 
Dearest!  to  thee  I  did  not  send 
Tutors,  but  a  joyful  eye, 
Innocence  that  matched  the  sky, 
Lovely  locks,  a  form  of  wonder, 
Laughter  rich  as  woodland  thunder, 
That  thou  might' st  entertain  apart 
The  richest  flowering  of  all  art: 
And,  as  the  great  all-seeing  Day 
Through  smallest  chambers  takes  its  way, 
That  thou  might' st  break  thy  daily  bread 
With  prophet,  Saviour,  and  Head  ; 
That  thou  might'st  cherish  for  thine  own 
The  riches  of  sweet  Mary's  Son, 
Boy-Rabbi,  Israel's  paragon! 
And  thoughtest  thou  such  guest 
"Would  in  thy  hall  take  up  his  rest? 

High  omens  ask  diviner  guess  ! 

. 

To-morrow,  when  the  masks  shall  fall 
That  dizen  Nature's  carnival, 
The  Pure  shall  see  by  their  own  will, 
Which  overflowing  Love  shall  fill. 


EMERSON  AS  PREACHER.  171 

'T  is  not  within  the  power  of  fate, 
The  fate-conjoined  to  separate. 

.  .   .  what  is  excellent, 
As  God  lives,  is  permanent. 
Hearts  are  dust ;  heart's  loves  remain  ; 
Heart's  love  will  meet  thee  again  !  " 

only  do  all  his  great  apocalyptic  chants,  but 
nearly  all  his  smaller  pieces, —  such  as,  "Rhea,"  "Each 
and  All,"  "  The  Rhodora,"  "  Hamatreya,"  "  Lines  to 
J.  W."  (I  might  copy  out  the  whole  table  of  con 
tents  from  his  two  volumes  of  poetry),  —  seem  a  true 
preaching,  even  "  The  Mountain  and  the  Squirrel,"  in 
this  instance  keenly  practical,  sometimes  catching  up 
our  spirits  into  the  vision  of  principles,  sometimes 
kindling  private  virtue  and  patriotic  heroism,  and 
sometimes  plunging  the  soul  into  the  unfound  infi 
nite.  In  one  of  his  lectures  he^defined  prayer  as,  "a 
plunge  into  the  unfound  infinite."  It  seems  to  me, 
therefore,  that  I  am  not  irreverent,  but  reverent, 
when,  as  my  last  word,  I  say  of  him,  more  and 
more  "the  multitude  hears  him  gladly,"  for,  like 
Jesus,  he  preaches  "  with  authority,"  and  not  as  the 
Scribes. 

POSTSCRIPT. 

There  was  no  time  for  a  conversation  after  I  closed 
my  reading,  as  Mrs.  Cheney's  lecture  and  mine  had 
taken  up  the  usual  time  of  the  session ;  but  to  a 
question  that  was  asked  just  as  we  broke  up,  "  What 
was  Mr.  Emerson's  attitude  towards  religious  institu 
tions  ? "  I  will  here  take  leave  to  reply.  It  was  an 


172  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

essentially  temporary  one,  like  that  he  held  to  the 
technics  of  the  pulpit  of  his  day.  His  attitude 
towards  the  Lord's  Supper  naturally  brought  him 
into  sympathy  with  the  Quakers  on  the  point  of 
stated  times  for  public  prayer;  and  he  actually 
ceased  to  go  to  meeting  on  Sundays  because  church- 
going  also  had  at  that  time  become  merely  perfunc 
tory.  But  I  heard  him  say,  at  that  very  date,  that  to 
meet  together  to  consider  all  our  duties  in  the  light 
of  the  Divine  Omnipresence  was  by  far  the  most 
legitimate  of  human  assemblies;  and  he  considered  it 
a  great  misfortune  to  society  that  it  had  become  such 
a  routine  that  "  a  devout  person  "  (he  meant  his  own 
ardently  Christian  wife)  said,  "  It  seems  wicked  to 
go  to  church." 

At  the  time  he  ceased  to  go  to  church  he  was 
making  a  pulpit  of  the  study-table  where  he  com 
posed  his  lectures.  He  never  abandoned  his  office  of 
preacher.  I  heard  hirn  say,  in  the  last  half  of  his 
life,  "  My  special  parish  is  young  men  inquiring  their 
way  of  life."  He  always  favored  their  free  access  to 
him,  and  it  would  not  be  easy  to  count  those  to  whom 
a  tete-a-tete  with  him  gave  the  clew  of  Life  eternal. 

In  the  last  of  his  life,  when  the  infirmities  of  old 
age  tied  his  tongue,  and  he  could  no  longer  minister 
the  word  of  moral  truth  to  others,  he  resumed  his 
early  habit  of  going  to  church  himself  on  Sundays ; 
and  his  wife  told  me  he  thanked  her  for  bringing  up 
his  children  to  do  so. 


EMERSON  AMONG   THE  POETS. 


VII. 
EMERSON   AMONG   THE  POETS. 

BY  F.   B.  SAXBORX. 

I  WISH  to  speak  of  Emerson,  and  not  merely  of 
a  poet ;  for  to  me  he  was  a  poet  and  much  more. 
And  therefore  my  theme  is,  "  Emerson  among  the 
Poets,"  —  the  man  whom  we  saw  and  heard,  and 
read  and  loved,  amidst  those  men  with  whom  his 
gifts  gave  him  rank  ;  who,  like  him,  were  poets  and 
something  more.  It  was  among  his  gifts  that  he 
could  feel  the  poetic  impulse  not  only  in  himself  but 
in  others  ;  that  he  knew  and  tested  high  poesy,  not 
so  much  by  a  critical  faculty  and  by  study,  as  by 
native  inspiration  and  appreciation.  The  great  poets 
addressed  him  as  one  of  themselves  ;  he  was  not  of 
their  audience,  but  of  their  choir.  Homer  says  :  — 

"  The  gods  are  to  each  other  not  unknown, 
Though  far  apart  they  dwell,''  — 

and  those  earthly  gods,  the  poets,  can  recognize  one 
another  in  all  disguises,  because  in  them  the  god 
head  is  more  than  the  apparent  disguise,  — "  the 
man  is  paramount  to  the  poet,"  as  Emerson  said  of 


174  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Milton.  Had  the  Concord  seer  never  written  a  line 
of  verse,  he  would  still  have  been  a  poet  by  virtue  of 
that  insight,  that  clairvoyance  of  the  imagination, 
which  is  the  one  indispensable  token  of  poetic  power. 
The  "  accomplishment  of  verse,"  as  Wordsworth  terms 
it,  is  another  thing ;  not  usually  divorced  entirely 
from  the  poetic  insight,  but  only  in  a  few  rare  in 
stances  (as  in  Shakspeare,  Milton,  Dante,  and  Ho 
mer)  completely  united  and  fused  with  it.  Even 
then  a  third  rarity  is  wont  to  be  absent,  —  a  mascu 
line  soul  capable  of  controlling  these  gifts  of  genius, 
and  constituting  their  possessor  a  true  man  as  well 
as  a  true  poet.  Toward  this  threefold  unity  of  in 
sight,  expression,  and  will,  —  this  union  of  what  Em 
erson  calls  "  the  Knower,  the  Sayer,  and  the  Doer," 
—  Dante  approached  nearer  than  Shakspeare,  and 
Milton  nearer  than  Dante ;  though  in  the  strictly 
poetic  gifts  Shakspeare  surpassed  them  both.  If 
w7e  were  to  look  in  recent  times  for  the  highest  ex 
ample  of  this  union,  we  should  find  it  in  Emerson 
rather  than  in  Wordsworth,  in  Victor  Hugo,  or  even 
in  Goethe,  who  has  passed  for  fifty  years  as  the  most 
perfect  type  of  these  blended  powers.  In  poetic  ex 
pression  Goethe  generally,  and  Wordsworth  often, 
surpass  Emerson ;  in  poetic  insight  neither  of  them 
is  so  lofty  nor  so  well  sustained.  In  the  acts  of 
life,  as  Victor  Hugo  has  played  a  grander  part  than 
Wordsworth  or  Goethe,  so  Emerson,  in  his  own 
sphere  and  for  all  time,  must  be  deemed  to  have  ex 
celled  the  great  Frenchman.  That  force  and  purity 


EMERSON  AMONG   THE  POETS.  175 

of  will  which  gives  Milton  his  pre-eminence  among 
English  poets  was  a  quality  no  less  marked  in  Em 
erson,  whose  fortune  it  was,  also,  to  be  thrown  on  a 
time  when  this  austere  greatness  of  soul,  like  Mil 
ton's,  could  give  to  genius  its  best  sanction,  and 
stamp  its  impression  most  durably  on  succeeding 
times.  For  the  delight  and  instruction  of  England 
and  America  Shakspeare  has  been  wondrously  effec 
tive,  far  beyond  Milton ;  but  for  the  spiritual  gov 
ernance  and  advancement  of  the  two  nations,  he  can 
bear  no  comparison  with  that  blind  poet,  — 

"In  whom  is  plainest  taught  and  easiest  learned 
What  makes  a  nation  happy  and  keeps  it  so." 

This  parallel  between  the  Puritan  and  the  Tran 
scendental  poet,  between  Milton  and  Emerson,  is 
not  only  obvious  in  itself,  but  is  thrust  upon  us  by 
the  description  which  Emerson  gave  of  Milton  half 
a  century  ago,  and  in  which  he  unconsciously  and 
prophetically  described  himself.  This  essay,  which 
was  first  a  lecture  in  Boston,  and  afterwards  (in 
1833)  an  article  in  the  "  Xortli  American  Review," 
has  not  been  included  by  Dr.  Emerson  in  the  recent 
edition  of  his  father's  writings,  and  I  may  therefore 
cite  from  it  the  more  freely,  as  not  being  accessible 
to  all.  Says  Emerson  :  — 

"  Milton  is  rightly  dear  to  mankind,  because  in  him, 
among  so  many  perverse  and  partial  men  of  genius, — 
in  him  humanity  rights  itself,  the  old  eternal  goodness  finds 
a  home  in  his  breast,  and  for  once  shows  itself  beau- 


176  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

tiful.  Among  so  many  contrivances  as  the  world  has 
seen  to  make  holiness  ugly,  in  Milton,  at  least,  it  was  so 
pure  a  flame  that  the  foremost  impression  his  character 
makes  is  that  of  elegance.  His  gifts  are  subordinated  to 
his  moral  sentiments ;  yet  his  virtues  are  so  graceful  that 
they  seem  rather  talents  than  labors.  The  victories  of  the 
conscience  in  him  are  gained  by  the  commanding  charm 
which  all  the  severe  and  restrictive  virtues  have  for  him. 
Yet  in  his  severity  is  no  grimace  or  effort ;  he  serves  from 
love,  not  from  fear.  He  is  innocent  and  exact,  because 
his  taste  was  so  pure  and  delicate.  He  acknowledges  to 
his  friend  Diodati,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  that  he  is 
enamoured,  if  ever  any  was,  of  moral  perfection.  *  For, 
whatever  the  Deity  may  have  bestowed  upon  me  in  other 
respects,  he  has  certainly  inspired  me,  if  ever  any  were 
inspired,  with  a  passion  for  the  good  and  fair.'  The  in- 
differency  of  a  wise  mind  to  what  is  called  high  and  low, 
and  the  fact  that  true  greatness  is  a  perfect  humility,  are 
revelations  of  Christianity  which  Milton  well  understood. 
They  give  an  inexhaustible  truth  to  all  his  compositions. 
Milton  —  gentle,  learned,  delicately  bred  in  all  the  ele 
gancy  of  art  arid  learning  —  was  set  down  in  the  stern, 
almost  fanatic  society  of  the  Puritans.  Susceptible  as 
Burke  to  the  attractions  of  historical  prescription,  of  roy 
alty,  of  chivalry,  of  an  ancient  church  illustrated  by  old 
martyrdoms,  and  installed  in  cathedrals,  he  threw  him 
self,  the  flower  of  elegancy,  on  the  side  of  the  reeking 
conventicle,  the  side  of  humanity,  but  unlearned  and  un 
adorned.  He  advises  that  in  country  places,  rather  than 
trudge  many  miles  to  a  church,  public  worship  be  main 
tained  nearer  home,  as  in  a  house  or  barn,  saying  :  '  We 
may  be  well  assured  that  He  who  disdained  not  to  be 


EMERSON  AMOXG  THE  POETS.  177 

born  in  a  manger,  disdains  not  to  be  preached  in  a  barn.' 
Though  drawn  into  the  great  controversies  of  the  times, 
he  is  never  lost  in  a  party.  His  private  opinions  and 
private  conscience  always  distinguish  him.  That  which 
drew  him  to  the  party  was  his  love  of  liberty,  ideal  lib 
erty  ;  this,  therefore,  he  could  not  sacrifice  to  any  party. 
The  most  devout  man  of  his  time,  he  frequented  no 
church  ;  probably  from  a  disgust  at  the  fierce  spirit  of 
the  pulpits.  And  so,  throughout  all  his  actions  and  opin 
ions,  he  is  a  consistent  spiritualist,  or  believer  in  the  oin- 
nipotance  of  spiritual  laws.  He  wished  that  his  writings 
should  be  communicated  only  to  those  who  desired  to  see 
them.  He  thought  nothing  honest  was  low.  The  tone  of 
his  thought  and  passion  is  as  healthful,  as  even,  and  as 
vigorous  as  befits  the  new  and  perfect  model  of  a  race  of 
gods.  It  was  plainly  needful  that  his  poetry  should  be  a 
version  of  his  own  life,  in  order  to  give  weight  and  solem 
nity  to  his  thoughts,  by  which  they  might  penetrate  and 
possess  the  imagination  and  will  of  mankind.  His  fancy 
is  never  transcendent,  extravagant ;  his  imagination  min 
isters  to  character.  Milton's  subliinest  song  is  the  voice 
of  Milton  still.  Indeed,  throughout  his  poems  one  may 
see,  under  a  thin  veil,  the  opinions,  the  feelings,  even  the 
incidents  of  the  poet's  life  still  reappearing." 

I  have  here  been  giving  the  very  words  of  Emer 
son,  now  and  then  changed  in  their  connection ;  and 
do  you  not  see  how  closely  they  apply  to  the  author 
himself  ?  Neither  is  this  because  of  any  marked 
similarity  in  the  fortunes  of  the  two  men,  but  by 
reason  of  that  superiority  of  the  man  to  his  circum 
stances,  and  even  to  his  endowments,  in  each  case. 

12 


178  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

These  endowments,  indeed,  were  widely  different. 
That  perfect  command  of  verse  for  every  form  of 
expression,  in  which  Milton  excels  every  English 
poet,  even  Shakspeare,  was  denied  to  Emerson,  who 
in  turn  excelled  Milton  in  the  sustained  force  and 
beauty  of  his  prose.  Like  Milton's,  however,  it  is 
the  prose  of  a  poet ;  and,  as  he  says  of  Milton's,  "  not 
the  style  alone  but  the  argument  also  is  poetic,  and 
we  read  one  sense  in  his  prose  and  in  his  metrical 
compositions." 

Let  us  then  pause  to  consider  what  poetry  is,  and 
what  it  has  in  common  with  prose.  For  these  two 
styles  of  writing  are  not  distinct  from  each  other,  as 
air  and  water  are,  —  one  ethereal,  the  other  terres 
trial,  one  visible,  the  other  invisible  and  seen  only 
in  its  effects ;  but  they  are  contrasted  manifestations, 
rather,  of  the  single  human  intelligence,  and  blend 
in  their  source,  however  distinct  may  be  their  course 
in  literature.  {The  basis  of  poetr^  is  Imagination  and 
the  higher  Eeason ;  the  basis  of  prose  is  the  Under 
standing  or  Common-Sense'lX  Yet  neither  prose  nor 
poetry  rejects  Fancy,  Wit,  arra.  Memory, — those  three 
graces  of  literature;  nor  does  prose  exclude  Imagi 
nation  and  the  supreme  Eeason ;  nor  yet  does  Poetry 
abhor  Common-Sense,  while  often  flying  high  above 
it.  Thus  Coleridge  —  himself  a  good  poet,  and  a 
follower  of  his  own  rule  —  said  :  "  Poetry  must  first 
be  good  sense ;  a  palace  may  well  be  magnificent, 
but  first  it  must  be  a  house."  On  the  other  hand, 
prose  must  have  something  more  than  good  sense  in 


EMERSON  AMONG   THE  POETS.  179 

order  to  be  eloquence,  which  is  the  highest  form  of 
prose.  There  is  eloquence  in  poetry  too ;  and  in  this 
noble  quality  we  see  the  union  of  prose  and  poetry. 
For  example,  we  take  no  offence  at  a  good  prose 
translation  of  the  great  poets  who  wrote  Sanscrit, 
Greek,  Latin,  Persian,  or  Italian  ;  but  the  translation 
must  be  eloquent,  or  we  never  call  it  good.  "What 
we  admire  in  the  poetical  books  of  the  Bible,  as  they 
appear  in  our  common  version,  is  their  eloquence, 
through  which,  as  through  a  clear  glass,  we  see  their 
essential  poetry  and  truth,  though  not  a  shred  be 
left  of  what  in  Hebrew  was  metrical.  Can  the  plain 
est  prose  translation  deprive  the  Bhagavat  Gita  of 
its  poetic  eloquence,  or  quench  the  magnificence  of 
Hafiz,  of  Saadi,  of  Firdusi,  or  of  the  antique,  half- 
fabulous  Zoroaster  ?  It  is  this  Zoroaster,  indeed,  to 
whom  is  ascribed  what  is  still  the  best  description 
of  the  poet  and  his  genius ;  for  in  his  oracular  man 
ner  he  was  understood  to  say :("  Poets  are  standing 
transporters :  their  employment  consists  in  speaking 
to  the  Father  and  to  Matter ;  in  producing  apparent 
copies  of  unapparent  natures,  and  thus  inscribing 
things  unapparent  in  the  apparent  fabric  of  the  world."  -> 
This  is  more  imaginative,  and  therefore  better,  than 
the  famous  definition  of  Bacon, —  "Poetry  accom 
modates  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the 
mind." 

But  can  anything  be  better  than  the  sayings  of 
Emerson  himself  on  this  subject,  of  which  he  was  the 
only  modem  master  ?  Thus,  he  said :  — 


180  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  Poetry  is  the  perpetual  endeavor  to  express  the  spirit 
of  the  thing." 

"  Poetry  is  tho  only  verity,  —  the  expression  of  a  sound 
mind  speaking  after  the  ideal,  and  not  after  the  apparent." 

"  Its  essential  work  is  that  it  "betrays  in  every  word 
instant  activity  of  mind,  shown  in  new  uses  of  every  fact 
and  image ;  all  its  words  are  poems." 

"  God  himself  does  not  speak  prose,  but  communicates 
with  us  by  hints,  omens,  inference,  and  dark  resemblances 
in  objects  lying  all  around  us." 

"  Poetry  teaches  the  enormous  force  of  a  few  words, 
and,  in  proportion  to  the  inspiration,  checks  loquacity. 
It  requires  that  splendor  of  expression  which  carries  with 
it  the  proof  of  great  thoughts.  The  great  poets  are  judged 
by  tho  frame  of  mind  they  induce ;  and  to  them,  of  all 
men,  tho  severest  criticism  is  due." 

It  was  upon  the  profound  truth  here  expressed  — 
that  "great  poets  are  judged  by  the  frame  of  mind 
they  induce "  —  that  Matthew  Arnold  should  have 
based  any  criticism  he  might  have  to  make  on 
Emerson  as  a  poet.  Tried  by  that  standard,  how 
different  would  have  been  the  verdict !  especially  if 
it  be  true,  as  Ben  Jonson  said,  that  "  the  principal 
end  of  poetry  is  to  inform  men  in  the  just  reason  of 
living."  Mr.  Arnold  began  by  making  those  impos 
sible  comparisons  of  our  poet  with  Cicero,  Voltaire, 
Swift,  and  Addison,  —  a  collocation  which  inevitably 
reminded  us  of  the  Irish  statuary  in  the  Groves  of 
Blarney,  — 

"Bold  Neptune,  Plutarch,  and  Nicodemus, 
All  standing  naked  in  the  open  air." 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  181 

The  Irish  poet  who  thus  revels  in  the  incongruous 
does  it  for  the  sake  of  compliment,  and  not,  like  our 
English  censor,  by  way  of  anticipating  the  awful 
doom  of  posterity.  Yet,  after  yielding  to  Time,  as 
he  condescendingly  says,  "  all  that  Time  can  take 
away,"  —  imagine  the  dispenser  of  "  sweetness  and 
light "  in  the  role  of  Fame, 

"  While  panting  Time  toils  after  him  in  vain,"  — 

after  this  severity  of  award  he  also  falls  into  the 
eulogistic  strain  of  the  Hibernian  bard :  — 

"  So  now  to  finish  this  brave  narration 

"Which  all  my  genius  could  not  entwine, 
But  were  I  Homer  or  Nebuchadnezzar, 
'T  is  in  every  feature  I  would  make  it  shine." 

Assuming  this  laudatory  part,  and  in  some  degree 
regaining  the  right  use  of  his  reason,  Mr.  Arnold 
proceeds  to  compare  Emerson  with  Marcus  Aurelius, 
as  "  the  friend  and  aider  of  those  who  would  live  in 
the  spirit."  He  certainly  was  that,  and  more ;  and 
he  did  resemble  Marcus  Aurelius  more  than  he  re 
sembled  Nebuchadnezzar  or  Swift  or  Voltaire.  And 
yet  the  likeness  of  Emerson  to  the  imperial  stoic 
was  not  a  very  close  or  confusing  one.  For  Marcus 
Aurelius  was  in  no  sense  a  poet,  and  hardly  an  appre- 
ciator  of  the  poets ;  while  Emerson  was  both  a  poet 
of  high  rank,  as  I  shall  hope  to  show  you,  and  also 
the  best  appreciator  of  poets  that  the  modern  world 
has  seen.  If  Mr.  Arnold,  in  the  great  heap  of  his 
wisdom,  had  chosen  to  compare  Emerson  with  Plu- 


182  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

tarch,  the  precursor  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  much 
more  than  that  emperor  "  the  friend  and  aider  of 
those  who  would  live  in  the  spirit,"  we  should  have 
said  that  the  comparison  was  more  just;  for  Plutarch, 
in  his  genius  and  his  influence,  —  nay,  even  in  his 
style  of  writing,  —  was  the  prototype  of  Emerson; 
not  in  all  respects,  but  under  the  limitations  and 
with  the  individual  peculiarities  that  distinguish 
all  men  of  one  era  from  all  men  of  every  other. 
Plutarch  was  no  poet,  to  be  sure,  but  a  dear  lover  and 
quoter  of  the  best  poetry;  and  to  him  we  owe  the 
currency,  and  often  the  preservation,  of  noble  pas 
sages  in  the  Greek  poets,  just  as  we  owe  to  Emerson 
the  quotation  and  currency  of  some  of  the  noblest 
passages  in  English  and  Persian  poetry.  Plutarch  was 
garrulous  too,  as  Emerson  never  was,  well  knowing, 
as  he  said,  that  "  poetry  teaches  the  enormous  force 
of  a  few  words,  and,  in  proportion  to  the  inspiration, 
checks  loquacity."  Yet  the  loquacious  Plutarch,  like 
the  reserved  and  concentrating  Emerson,  knew  life 
at  its  source  and  in  its  thousand  saliencies,  as  Shak- 
speare  did ;  and  had  he  been  a  poet,  might  have  been 
that  impossible  being  —  the  Shakspeare  of  antiquity 
—  whom  we  must  now  piece  together  out  of  Pindar, 
^Eschylus,  Plato,  and  Aristophanes,  and  still  come 
short  of  the  wonderful  genius  we  name  Shakspeare.  ' 

Mr.  Symonds,  a  learned  and  sometimes  a  felicitous 
English  critic,  when  seeking  to  explain  the  short 
brilliancy  of  dramatic  poetry  in  England  during  the 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  183 

time  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  finds  occasion  to  apply 
the  term.  "  clairvoyance  "  to  the  dramatic  genius  of 
the  English  poets.  He  says  :  — 

"  The  ancient  Greeks  and  the  Italians  of  the  Renais 
sance  possessed  clairvoyance  in  the  plastic  arts.  The 
present  age  is  clairvoyant  in  science,  and  the  application 
of  science  to  purposes  of  utility.  At  each  great  epoch  of 
the  -world's  history  the  mind  of  man  has  penetrated  more 
deeply  than  at  others  into  some  particular  subject ;  lias 
interrogated  Nature  in  its  own  way,  solving  for  one  period 
of  time  intuitively  and  with  ease  prohlerns  which  before 
and  after  it  has  been  unable  with  pains  to  apprehend  in 
the  same  manner.  In  the  days  of  our  dramatic  supremacy 
the  apocalypse  of  man  was  more  complete  than  at  any 
other  moment  of  the  world's  history.  Shakspeare  and  his 
contemporaries  reveal  human  passions,  thoughts,  aspira 
tions,  sentiments,  and  motives  of  action,  with  evidence 
so  absolute  that  the  creations  even  of  Sophocles,  of  Cal- 
deron,  of  Corneille,  when  compared  with  these,  seem  to 
represent  abstract  conceptions  or  animated  forms  rather 
than  the  inner  truth  of  life.  This  clairvoyance  gave  them 
insight  into  things  beyond  their  own  experience.  Shak 
speare  painted  much  that  he  had  never  seen ;  and  it  was 
true  to  Nature.  This  power,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  was 
shared  by  his  contemporaries ;  they  owed  it  to  that  intuition 
into  human  character  which  was  the  virtue  of  their  age." 

It  was  also,  if  not  the  virtue  of  Emerson's  period 
and  environment,  at  least  the  endowment  of  himself, 
of  Margaret  Fuller  and  Hawthorne,  and  others  of  his 
fellowship. 


184  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Mr.  Arnold  once  defined  genius  as  "  mainly  an 
affair  of  energy/'  and  contrasted  the  English  liter 
ary  "genius"  with  the  French  "openness  of  mind 
and  flexibility  of  intelligence."  The  Elizabethan  age, 
he  said,  produced  "  a  literature  of  genius ; "  and  then 
with  characteristic  carping  he  complained  of  the  pov 
erty  of  its  results,  and  lauded  the  power  and  fecun 
dity  of  the  French  "  literature  of  intelligence  "  in  the 
great  century  of  Louis  XIV.  Against  this  judgment 
Mr.  Symonds  protests,  rightly,  and  says  that  "  the 
memory  of  the  Elizabethan  poets,  like  the  memory 
of  youth  and  spring,  is  now  an  element  of  beauty  in 
the  mental  life  of  a  people  too  much  given  to  worldly 
interests.  The  blossoms,  too,  of  that  spring-time  of 
poetry,  unlike  the  pleasures  of  youth  or  the  flowers 
of  May,  are  imperishable."  What  the  Elizabethan 
age  was  to  English  literature,  the  Transcendental 
period  was  to  the  literature  of  New  England;  and 
our  spring-time  of  poetry,  though  late  and  brief  in 
comparison  with  that  which  saw  the  blossoming  of 
Sidney's,  Spenser's,  Raleigh's,  Marlowe's,  and  Shak- 
speare's  genius,  will  be  as  imperishable  as  theirs. 
The  climate  and  the  soil  of  Massachusetts  were  not 
favorable  to  the  flowers  that  bloom  around  the  Muses' 
fountain  ;  yet  the  may  flower  and  the  violet  could 
open  there,  and  another  plant  there  was  which  the 
shepherd  of  our  meadows  found  :  — 

"Amongst  the  rest  a  small  unsightly  root, 
But  of  divine  effect,  he  culled  me  out ; 
The  leaf  was  darkish,  and  had  prickles  on  it, 
But  in  another  country,  as  he  said, 


y  AMONG  THE  POETS.  185 


Bore  a  bright  golden  flower,  but  not  in  this  soil  ; 
Unknown,  and  like  esteemed,  and  the  dull  swain 
Treads  on  it  daily  with  his  clouted  shoon  ; 
And  yet  more  med'ciual  is  it  than  that  moly 
"Which  Hermes  once  to  wise  Ulysses  gave." 

We  have  seen  the  lofty  scholar  from  Cambridge  or 
Oxford  tread  as  heavily  on  our  unnoticed  and  divine 
flower  as  Milton's  ploughman  did  ;  but  the  virtue 
and  beauty  of  the  plant  were  there  all  the  same.  To 
trample  or  browse  on  flowers  is  the  botany  of  the 
ox  ;  and  to  neglect  or  note  with  scorn  a  new  form 
of  poetry  is  habitual  with  all  but  the  best  critics. 
Emerson  said,  —  and  Arnold  may  well  heed  this,  — 
"The  reason  that  we  set  so  high  a  value  on  any 
poetry  —  as  often  on  a  line  or  a  phrase  as  on  a 
poem  —  is  that  it  is  a  new  work  of  Nature,  as  a 
man  is.  It  must  be  as  new  as  foam  and  as  old  as 
the  rock.  But  a  new  verse  comes  once  in  a  hun 
dred  years  ;  therefore  Pindar,  Hafiz,  Dante,  speak 
so  proudly  of  what  seems  to  the  clown  a  jingle." 
Emerson  would  never  say  for  himself  what  we  must 
say  for  his  best  verses,  in  the  words  that  Shakspeare 
wrote  of  his  own  sonnets  :  — 

"  Xor  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 
Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme." 

What,  then,  are  some  of  the  best  poems  of  Emer 
son,  and  why  will  they  be  permanent  ?  We  say  that 
"  The  Sphinx,"  "  Uriel,"  some  passages  in  "  Wood- 
notes,"  the  "Ode  to  Beauty,"  "The  Forerunners," 
"  Herniione,"  "  Merlin,"  "  The  Three  Loves,"  and  the 


186  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  Threnody "  will  survive ;  that  those  short  poems 
which  he  chose  out  from  his  "  Discontented  Poet's  " 
portfolio,  as  mottoes  for  the  essays,  will  be  as  per 
manent  as  they  are  oracular ;  and  that  many  of  his 
epigrams  will  go  down  to  posterity  with  those  in 
the  Greek  Anthology.  Of  more  personal  poems, 
"The  Dirge,"  "  Saadi,"  "Khea,"  "The  Titmouse,"  "The 
Days,"  "  Terminus,"  and  some  portions  of  those  new 
poems  that  appear  in  the  last  edition,  may  be  cited 
as  giving  in  the  best  manner  the  poet's  portrait  of 
himself.  But  there  is  not  a  poem  which  he  gave 
to  the  world  in  his  lifetime  —  hardly  a  verse  —  that 
does  not  contain  something  worth  preserving  when 
the  more  ambitious  poems  of  other  men  are  allowed 
to  perish.  This  will  seem  extravagant  to  some  of 
you  ;  but  time  will  bear  out  what  is  here  said, 
as  it  has  already  brought  forward  into  the  light 
these  verses  that  were  once  so  obscure  and  un 
known. 

And  why  are  these  verses  —  too  often  fantastic, 
rude,  or  harsh  —  to  outlive  the  more  polished  and 
melodious  poetry  of  other  men  ?  First,  because  of 
their  superior  tone.  They  speak  as  having  author 
ity,  and  not  as  the  Scribes.  They  are  oracular,  not 
with  ostentation  or  for  effect,  but  with  weight.  He 
is  the  one  modern  poet  that  "  uses  Nature  as  his 
hieroglyphic,"  and  has  "  an  adequate  message  to  con 
vey  thereby."  Observe  how  naturally  these  symbols 
fall  to  his  use.  He  is  describing  the  common  expe 
rience  of  a  lonely  youth  who  through  the  magic  of 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  187 

love  comes  into  communion  with  the  wide  world,  — 
and  thus  he  writes  in  "  Hermione  "  :  — 

"In  old  Bassora's  schools,  I  seemed 
Hermit  vowed  to  books  and  gloom,  — 
Ill-bestead  for  gay  bridegroom  ; 
I  was  by  thy  touch  redeemed  ; 
"When  thy  meteor  glances  came, 
AVe  talked  at  large  of  worldly  fate, 
And  drew  truly  every  trait. 

"Once  I  dwelt  apart, 
Now  I  live  with  all ; 
As  shepherd's  lamp  on  far  hillside 
Seems,  by  the  traveller  espied, 
A  door  into  the  mountain  heart,  — 
So  didst  thou  quarry  and  unlock 
Highways  for  me  through  the  rock." 

Iii  the  same  poem  (which  seems  to  be  but  little  read) 
we  find  that  superb  homage  which  genius  pays  to  the 
object  of  its  love,  and  which  makes  the  poet  the  dar 
ling  of  the  sex  that  loves  to  be  worshipped  :  — 

"  If  it  be,  as  they  said,  she  was  not  fair, 
Beauty  's  not  beautiful  to  me, 
But  sceptred  genius,  aye  inorbed, 
Culminating  in  her  sphere. 
This  Hermione  absorbed 
The  lustre  of  the  land  and  ocean, 
Hills  and  islands,  cloud  and  tree, 
In  her  form  and  motion. 

"  I  ask  no  bauble  miniature, 
Nor  ringlets  dead 
Shorn  from  her  comely  head, 
Now  that  morning  not  disdains, 
Mountains  and  the  misty  plains, 
Her  colossal  portraiture ; 


188  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

They  her  heralds  be, 
Steeped  in  her  quality, 
And  singers  of  her  fame 
"Who  is  their  muse  and  dame. 


South-wind  is  my  next  of  blood  ; 

He  is  come  through  fragrant  wood, 

Drugged  with  spice  from  climates  warm, 

And  in  every  twinkling  glade, 

And  twilight  nook, 

Unveils  thy  form. 

Out  of  the  forest  way 

Forth  paced  it  yesterday, 

And  when  I  sat  by  the  watercourse, 

Watching  the  daylight  fade, 

It  throbbed  up  from  the  brook." 

As  none  has  written  so  well  the  lore  of  noble  love, 
so  none  has  more  sententiously  set  forth  the  gospel 
of  friendship,  in  this  brief  poem  :  — 

FRIENDSHIP. 

A  ruddy  drop  of  manly  blood 

The  surging  sea  outweighs  ; 

The  world,  uncertain,  comes  and  goes, 

The  lover  rooted  stays. 

I  fancied  he  was  fled,  — 

And,  after  many  a  year, 

Glowed  unexpected  kindliness, 

Like  daily  sunrise  there. 

My  careful  heart  was  free  again, 

"0  friend,"  my  bosom  said, 

"  Through  thee  alone  the  sky  is  arched, 

Through  thee  the  rose  is  red  ; 

All  things  through  thee  take  nobler  form, 

And  look  beyond  the  earth  ; 


EMERSON  AMOXG  THE  POETS.  189 

The  mill-round  of  our  fate  appears 

A  sun-path  in  thy  worth. 

Me  too  thy  nobleness  hath  taught 

To  master  my  despair  ; 

The  fountains  of  my  hidden  life 

Are  through  thy  friendship  fair." 

The  permanence  of  Friendship,  in  contrast  with 
the  flitting,  fugitive  nature  of  Love,  is  well  marked 
in  this  poem ;  for  Friendship,  as  the  French  say,  "  is 
Love  without  his  wings."  Emerson  understood  this, 
like  every  other  part  of  the  lore  which  Love  im 
parts,  and  which  is  fully  known  only  to  women  and 
to  poets ;  and  he  perceived  that  magnanimity  was 
the  shibboleth  in  Love's  camp.  Observe  the  advice 
he  gives  to  lovers,  which  not  only  in  purity  but  in 
profound  art  and  wisdom  goes  far  beyond  Ovid's  or 
Petrarca's  or  even  Shakspeare's  doctrine  and  disci 
pline  of  love  :  — 

"  Give  all  to  Love  ;  obey  thy  heart : 
Friends,  kindred,  days,  estate,  good-fame, 
Plans,  credit,  and  the  Muse,  — 
Nothing  refuse. 

'T  is  a  brave  master,  —  let  it  have  scope  : 
Follow  it  utterly,  —  hope  beyond  hope  : 
High  and  more  high  it  dives  into  noon, 
"With  wing  unspent, 
Untold  intent  ; 

But 't  is  a  god  ;  knows  its  own  path 
And  the  outlets  of  the  sky. 

"  It  was  never  for  the  mean  ; 
It  requireth  courage  stout, 
Souls  above  doubt, 
Valor  unbending  ; 


190  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Such  'twill  reward,  — they  shall  return 
More  than  they  were,  and  ever  ascending. 


Cling  with  life  to  the  maid  ; 

But  when  the  surprise, 

First  vague  shadow  of  surmise, 

Flits  across  her  bosom  young, 

Of  a  joy  apart  from  thee,  — 

Free  be  she,  fancy-free  : 

Nor  thou  detain  her  vesture's  hem, 

Nor  the  palest  rose  she  flung 

From  her  summer  diadem. 

"Though  thou  loved  her  as  thyself, 
As  a  self  of  purer  clay,  — 
Though  her  parting  dims  the  day, 
Stealing  grace  from  all  alive  ; 
Heartily  know 
When  half-gods  go 
The  gods  arrive." 

In  another  tone,  but  to  the  same  effect,  he  sings  in 
"Khea":  — 

"  When  a  god  is  once  beguiled 
By  beauty  of  a  mortal  child, 
And  by  her  radiant  youth  delighted, 
He  is  not  fooled,  but  warily  knoweth 
His  love  shall  never  be  requited. 
And  thus  the  wise  Immortal  doeth,  — 
'T  is  his  study  and  delight 
To  bless  that  creature  day  and  night ; 
From  all  evils  to  defend  her  ; 
In  her  lap  to  pour  all  splendor  ; 
'    To  ransack  earth  for  riches  rare, 
And  fetch  her  stars  to  deck  her  hair  : 
He  mixes  music  with  her  thoughts, 
And  saddens  her  with  heavenly  doubts  : 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  191 

All  grace,  all  good  his  great  heart  knows, 
Profuse  in  love,  the  king  bestows  : 
Saying,  '  Hearken,  Earth,  Sea,  Air  ! 
This  monument  of  my  despair 
Build  I  to  the  All-Good,  All-Fair. 

These  presents  be  the  hostages 
Which  I  pawn  for  my  release. 
See  to  thyself,  0  universe  ! 
Thou  art  better,  and  not  worse,'  — 
And  the  god,  having  given  all, 
Is  freed  forever  from  his  thrall." 

It  is  in  the  longer  poem,  however,  —  "  Initial,  Dae 
monic,  and  Celestial  Love,"  —  that  Emerson  treats 
most  fully  of  the  universal  passion ;  yet  not  here 
like  a  boy  with  his  spelling-lesson,  nor  a  school 
master  with  his  protasis  and  apodosis,  his  thus  and 
therefore,  but  in  the  free  manner  of  the  great  artist, 
whose  sketch  contains  more  of  feeling  and  picture 
than  the  mosaic  of  lapidaries.  In  this  wonderful 
chart  of  love  he  begins  with  the  first  voyage  of 
Cupid,  and  arrives,  by  magic  isle  and  wild  ship 
wreck,  at  the  harbor  of  the  celestials,  where  the  freed 
spirits, 

"  Borne  o'er  the  bosom  of  the  untrammelled  deep, 
Eide  in  the  heavenly  boat  and  touch  new  stars." 

In  the  first  part  of  this  poem,  "  The  Initial  Love," 
Emerson  is  sportive  as  Mercutio,  a  gay  bachelor  who 
is  in  the  first  freshness  of  his  adventure,  and  pub 
lishes  his  hue-and-cry  for  the  son  of  Venus  as  a 
Greek  poet  might :  — 


192  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  Venus,  when  her  son  was  lost, 
Cried  him  up  and  down  the  coast. 

He  came  late  along  the  waste, 

Shod  like  a  traveller  for  haste  ; 

"With  malice  dared  me  to  proclaim  him, 

That  the  maids  and  boys  might  name  him." 

So  the  young  poet  accepts  the  challenge,  and  goes 
on  like  Mercutio  painting  the  portrait  of  Queen 
Mab:  — 

"  Boy  no  more,  he  wears  all  coats, 
Frocks,  and  blouses,  capes,  capotes  ; 
He  bears  no  bow  or  quiver  or  wand, 
Nor  chaplet  on  his  head  or  hand. 
Leave  his  weeds  and  heed  his  eyes,  — 
All  the  rest  he  can  disguise. 
In  the  pit  of  his  eye  's  a  spark 
Would  bring  back  day  if  it  were  dark. 

Fleeter  they  than  any  creature,  — 
They  are  his  steeds,  and  not  his  feature  ; 
Inquisitive  and  fierce  and  fasting, 
Restless,  predatory,  hasting  ; 
And  they  pounce  on  other  eyes 
As  lions  on  their  prey. 

Heralds  high  before  him  run  ; 
He  has  ushers  many  a  one  ; 
He  spreads  his  welcome  where  he  goes, 
And  touches  all  things  with  his  rose. 
All  things  wait  for  and  divine  him,  — 
How  shall  I  dare  to  malign  him, 
Or  accuse  the  god  of  sport  ? 
I  must  end  my  true  report,  — 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  193 

"  He  is  wilful,  mutable, 
Shy,  untamed,  inscrutable, 
Swifter-fashioned  than  the  fairies, 
Substance  mixed  of  pure  contraries  ; 
His  vice  some  elder  virtue's  token, 
And  his  good  is  evil-spoken. 


Shun  him,  nymphs,  on  the  fleet  horses  ! 
He  has  a  total  world  of  wit ; 
Oh  how  wise  are  his  discourses  ! 
But  he  is  the  arch-hypocrite. 


He  is  a  Pundit  of  the  East, 
He  is  an  augur  and  a  priest, 
And  his  soul  will  melt  in  prayer, 
But  word  and  wisdom  is  a  snare  ; 
Corrupted  by  the  present  toy, 
He  follows  joy,  and  only  joy. 
There  is  no  mask  but  he  will  wear  ; 
He  invented  oaths  to  swear. 

Boundless  is  his  memory  ; 
Plans  immense  his  term  prolong  ; 
He  is  not  of  counted  age, 
Meaning  always  to  be  young. 
And  his  wish  is  intimacy,  — 
Intimater  intimacy, 
And  a  stricter  privacy  ; 
The  impossible  shall  yet  be  done, 
And,  being  two,  shall  still  be  one." 

Here  ends  the  Mercutio  phase  of  the  poet,  and 
when  he  next  speaks,  in  "  The  Daemonic  Love,"  it  is 
in  a  more  serious  tone,  and  with  an  air  of  solemn 
warning,  something  like  that  of  Lucretius,  but  with  a 
higher  meaning.  Now  appears  that  docrine  of  magic 

13 


194  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

influences  of  which  we  catch  glimpses  here  and  there 
all  through  Emerson's  imaginative  writing.  His  the 
ory  of  Daemons  is  plainly  yet  fancifully  stated  :  — 

"  Close,  close  to  men, 
Like  undulating  layer  of  air, 
Eight  above  their  heads, 
The  potent  plane  of  Dsemons  spreads  ; 
Stands  to  each  human  soul  its  own, 
For  watch  and  ward  and  furtherance, 
In  the  snares  of  Nature's  dance  ; 
And  the  lustre  and  the  grace 
To  fascinate  each  youthful  heart, 
Beaming  from  its  counterpart, 
Translucent  through  the  mortal  covers, 
Is  the  Daemon's  form  and  face. 
To  and  fro  the  Genius  hies,  — 
A  gleam  which  plays  and  hovers 
Over  the  maiden's  head, 
And  dips  sometimes  as  low  as  to  her  eyes. 


Sometimes  the  airy  synod  bends 
And  the  mighty  choir  descends, 
And  the  brains  of  men  thenceforth, 
In  crowded  and  in  still  resorts, 
Teem  with  unwonted  thoughts  : 
As  when  a  shower  of  meteors 
Cross  the  orbit  of  the  earth, 
And,  lit  by  fringent  air, 
Blaze  near  and  far,  — 
Mortals  deem  the  planets  bright 
Have  slipped  their  sacred  bars, 
And  the  lone  seaman,  all  the  night, 
Sails,  astonished,  amid  stars." 

These  Dsemons  are  both  good  and  bad,  black  and 
white,  like  the  genii  that  attended  on  the  ancients ; 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  195 

and  when  Love  conies  under  the  power  of  "  Daemons 
less  divine/'  the  issue  is  disastrous  :  — 

"  The  Daemon  ever  builds  a  wall, 
Himself  encloses  and  includes, 
Solitude  in  solitudes  : 
In  like  sort  his  love  doth  fall. 


He  doth  elect 

The  beautiful  and  fortunate, 

And  the  sons  of  intellect, 

And  the  souls  of  ample  fate, 

Who  the  Future's  gates  unbar,  — 

Minions  of  the  Morning  Star. 

In  his  prowess  he  exults, 

And  the  multitude  insults. 

His  impatient  looks  devour 

Oft  the  humble  and  the  poor  ; 

And,  seeing  his  eye  glare, 

They  drop  their  few  pale  flowers, 

Gathered,  with  hope  to  please, 

Along  the  mountain  towers,  — 

Lose  courage,  and  despair. 

He  will  never  be  gainsaid,  — 

Pitiless,  will  not  be  stayed  ; 

His  hot  tyranny 

Burns  up  every  other  tie. 

Therefore  comes  an  hour  from  Jove 

"Which  his  ruthless  will  defies, 

And  the  dogs  of  Fate  unties. 

Shiver  the  palaces  of  glass  ; 

Shrivel  the  rainbow-colored  walls, 

"Where  in  bright  Art  each  god  and  sibyl  dwelt 

Secure  as  in  the  zodiac's  belt  ; 

And  the  galleries  and  halls, 

Wherein  every  siren  sung, 

Like  a  meteor  pass. 


196  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

For  this  fortune  wanted  root 
In  the  core  of  God's  abysm,  — 
Was  a  weed  of  self  and  schism  ; 
And  ever  the  Dtemonic  Love 
Is  the  ancestor  of  wars 
And  the  parent  of  remorse." 

And  now  we  come  to  the  culmination  of  this  three 
fold  poem,  —  "  The  Celestial  Love,"  which  restores 
and  completes  this  broken  vision  of  the  grand  pas 
sion.  It  is  no  longer  Cupid,  the  boy-god,  nor  the 
tyrannical  and  exclusive  Daemon  of  whom  these 
dithyrambic  verses,  imaginative  and  inconsequent 
as  the  strophes  of  a  Greek  chorus,  chant  to  us ;  we 
hear  the  Divine  voice  itself :  — 

"  But  God  said,  — 

'  I  will  have  a  purer  gift  ; 

There  is  smoke  in  the  flame  ; 

New  flowerets  bring,  new  prayers  uplift, 

And  love  without  a  name  ! 

"  *  Deep,  deep  are  loving  eyes, 
Flowed  with  naphtha  fiery  sweet  : 
And  the  point  is  paradise,  • 
Where  their  glances  meet ; 
Their  reach  shall  yet  be  more  profound, 
And  a  vision  without  bound.' 


Higher  far, 

Upward  into  the  pure  realm, 

Over  sun  and  star, 

Over  the  flickering  Dsemon  film, 

Thou  must  mount  for  love  ; 

Into  vision  where  all  form 


EMERSON  AMOXG   THE  POETS.  197 

In  one  only  form  dissolves, 

In  a  region  -where  the  wheel 

On  which  all  beings  ride 

Visibly  revolves  ; 

Where  the  starred,  eternal  worm 

Girds  the  world  with  bound  and  term  ; 

Where  unlike  things  are  like, 

Where  good  and  ill, 

And  joy  and  moan, 

Melt  into  one. 

There  Past,  Present,  Future,  shoot 

Triple  blossoms  from  one  root ; 

Substances  at  base  divided 

In  their  summits  are  united  ; 

There  the  holy  Essence  rolls 

One  through  separated  souls  ; 

And  the  sunny  JEou  sleeps, 

Folding  Xature  in  its  deeps  ; 

And  every  fair  and  every  good, 

Known  in  part  or  known  impure 

To  men  below, 

In  their  archetypes  endure. 

The  race  of  gods, 

Or  those  we  erring  own, 

Are  shadows  flitting  up  and  down 

In  the  still  abodes. 

The  circles  of  that  sea  are  laws 

Which  publish  and  which  hide  their  cause." 

This  is  mysticism,  and  the  very  romance  of  mys 
ticism,  —  intelligible  to  some,  musical  to  all,  —  and 
breathing  deeply  of  Plato  and  the  Orientals,  who, 
more  than  all  others,  were  the  torch-bearers  to  Emer 
son  in  his  philosophy.  Of  that  I  do  not  speak,  but 
of  his  poetry,  which  in  this  instance  rises  to  its 
highest  flight,  and  far  beyond  those  meaningless 


198  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

melodies  of  Edgar  Poe  which  caught  the  ear  of 
the  world  in  Emerson's  time.  But  now  follows  the 
ethical  lesson  delivered  from  this  height  of  the 
imagination :  — 

"  Pray  for  a  beam 
Out  of  that  sphere, 
Thee  to  guide  and  to  redeem. 

Counsel  which  the  ages  kept 
Shall  the  well-born  soul  accept. 
As  garment  draws  the  garment's  hem, 
Men  their  fortunes  bring  with  them. 


"  Not  less  do  the  eternal  poles 
Of  tendency  distribute  souls. 
There  need  no  vows  to  bind 
"Whom  not  each  other  seek,  but  find. 
They  give  and  take  no  pledge  or  oath,  — 
Nature  is  the  bond  of  both  : 
No  prayer  persuades,  no  flattery  fawns,  — 
Their  noble  meanings  are  their  pawns. 
Plain  and  cold  is  their  address, 
Power  have  thejr  for  tenderness  ; 
And,  so  thoroughly  is  known 
Each  other's  counsel  by  his  own, 
They  can  parley  without  meeting  ; 
Need  is  none  of  forms  of  greeting  ; 
They  can  well  communicate 
In  their  innermost  estate  ; 
"When  each  the  other  shall  avoid, 
Shall  each  by  each  be  most  enjoyed. 

"  Not  with  scarfs  or  perfumed  gloves 
Do  these  celebrate  their  loves  ; 
Not  by  jewels,  feasts,  and  savors, 
Not  by  ribbons  or  by  favors, 


EMERSON  AMONG   THE  POETS.  199 

But  by  the  sun-spark  on  the  sea, 
And  the  cloud -shadow  on  the  lea, 
The  soothing  lapse  of  mom  to  mirk, 
And  the  cheerful  round  of  work. 
Their  cords  of  love  so  public  are, 
They  intertwine  the  farthest  star  : 
The  throbbing  sea,  the  quaking  earth, 
Yield  sympathy  and  signs  of  mirth. 

Even  the  fell  Furies  are  appeased, 
The  good  applaud,  the  lost  are  eased. 

"Love's  hearts  are  faithful,  but  not  fond, 
Bound  for  the  just,  but  not  beyond  ; 
Not  glad,  as  the  low-loving  herd, 
Of  self  in  other  still  preferred,  — 
But  these  have  heartily  designed 
The  benefit  of  broad  mankind  ; 
And  they  serve  men  austerely, 
After  their  own  genius,  clearly, 
"Without  a  false  humility  ; 
For  this  is  Love's  nobility,  — 
Not  to  scatter  bread  and  gold,  • 
Goods  and  raiment  bought  and  sold  ; 
But  to  hold  fast  his  simple  sense, 
And  speak  the  speech  of  innocence, 
And  with  hand  and  body  and  blood 
To  make  his  bosom-counsel  good. 
He  that  feeds  men  serveth  few  ; 
He  serves  all  who  dares  be  true." 

"  What  extraordinary  language  for  a  vestry -meet 
ing!"  shuddered  the  English  bishop,  when  his  Ameri 
can  brother  related  the  imsanctified  confession  of 
his  quarrelsome  church-warden.  What  an  uncom 
mon  ending  is  this  for  a  love-poem,  you  will  say,  — 
this  noble  maxim,  which  does  not  in  the  least  remind 


200  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

us  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Our  Mercutio  has  been 
transformed  into  Romeo,  and  the  amorous  Montague 
again  into  the  Platonic  poet,  —  and  now  this  soaring 
Muse  alights  and  reappears  as  one 

"  Of  those  budge  doctors  of  the  Stoic  fur, 
Praising  the  lean  and  sallow  abstinence." 

The  changes  are  bewildering,  I  confess,  —  but  the 
doctrine  of  this  stoic  is  admirable,  and  he  has  drawn 
it  direct  from  the  book  of  Love,  in  which  not  even 
Shakspeare  was  better  read.  Nor  do  we  find  in 
Emerson  those  low  and  jesting  commentaries  on  the 
heavenly  text  which  Shakspeare  could  not  avoid 
writing  in  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  Emerson  avoids 
those  marginal  references  to  Aristotle  and  the  scho 
lastic  theology  which  chill  and  weary  the  reader  of 
Dante's  love-poems.  Of  the  four  great  scholars  in 
the  philosophy  of  Love,  —  Plato,  Dante,  Shakspeare, 
and  Emerson,  —  our  countryman  pierced  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  the  matter  than  the  Greek,  the  Tuscan, 
or  the  Englishman,  —  not  excepting  Shakspeare's 
"  sugared  Sonnets,"  nor  that  mysterious  poem  as 
cribed  to  him,  "  The  Phoenix  and  Turtle,"  which 
Emerson  thought  so  "  quaint  and  charming  in  dic 
tion,  tone,  and  allusions,  and  in  its  perfect  metre  and 
harmony,"  as  to  be  poetry  for  poets  alone.  Emerson 
added,  what  will  apply  well  to  much  of  his  own 
verse  :  "  This  poem,  if  published  for  the  first  time, 
and  without  a  known  author's  name,  would  find  no 
general  reception  ;  only  the  poets  would  save  it." 


EMERSON  AMONG   THE  POETS.  201 

I  have  dwelt  at  this  length  on  Emerson's  love-poems, 
because  it  is  by  their  treatment  of  this  universal 
subject  that  poets  are  judged  and  tested.  I  do  not 
know  from  what  page  of  Milton  Mr.  Arnold  took 
the  dictum  that  poetry  ought  always  to  be  "  simple, 
sensuous,  or  impassioned,"  but  it  is  chiefly  to  love- 
poetry,  narration,  and  description  that  this  test  would 
apply ;  and  Milton  himself,  in  his  highest  flights,  dis 
regarded  it  completely,  as  the  Greek  dramatists,  and 
Pindar,  Lucretius,  Dante,  and  Shakspeare  had  done 
before  him,  —  and  as  Mr.  Arnold  (to  compare  great 
things  with  small)  has  since  done.  Montaigne  or 
Aristotle,  to  say  nothing  of  Plato,  could  have  sup 
plied  us  with  a  better  test.  Says  Montaigne,  speak 
ing  of  style :  "  The  precepts  of  the  masters,  and  still 
more  their  example,  tell  us  that  we  must  have  a 
little  insanity,  if  we  would  not  have  still  more  stupid 
ity.  A  thousand  poets  drawl  and  languish  in  prose ; 
but  the  best  of  the  ancient  prose  (and  the  same  with 
verse)  glows  throughout  with  the  vigor  and  daring 
of  poesy,  and  assumes  an  air  of  inspiration.  The 
poet,  says  Plato," — I  am  still  quoting  Montaigne,  who 
gives  his  own  quaint  form  to  the  passage  in  Plato's 
Laws,  — "  the  poet,  sitting  on  the  Muses'  tripod,  pours 
out,  like  mad,  all  that  comes  into  his  mouth,  as  if  it 
were  the  spout  of  a  fountain,  without  digesting  or 
weighing  it ;  and  so  things  escape  him  of  various 
colors,  of  opposite  natures,  and  with  intermittent 
flow.  Plato  himself  is  wholly  poetic ;  the  old  the 
ology  is  all  poetry,  say  the  scholars ;  and  the  First 


202  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

Philosophy  is  the  original  language  of  the  gods." 
To  this  wild  rule  Emerson  conforms ;  and  still  more 
to  that  saying  of  Aristotle  in  his  Poetics,  —  "  Poetry 
is  more  philosophical  and  more  earnest  than  his 
tory,"  —  fyi\oGO$a)Tepov  KOI  cnrov^aiorepov  laropia^ 
Tro^o-t?  eariv.  By  history,  as  Professor  David 
son  has  shown,  Aristotle  here  meant  all  account  of 
and  -research  into  fact,  —  while  poetry  is  the  artis 
tic  spirit.  Or,  as  Professor  Davidson  says,  "  History 
is  in  its  highest  form  a  matter  of  the  understand 
ing;  poetry  is  based  upon  the  reason."  And  this 
reason  is  not  only  more  philosophical  and  more 
earnest  than  the  understanding  of  man,  but  it  moves 
by  swifter  and  less  connected  steps, — is  winged  where 
the  understanding  is  footed  or  crawling.  Its  wings  are 
insight  and  imagination,  and  its  logic  is  a  flight  and 
not  a  stairway,  —  or  at  the  slowest,  a  "flight  of  stairs," 
in  which  surprise  awaits  every  ascending  step. 

"  '  Pass  in,  pass  in,'  the  angels  say, 
*  In  to  the  upper  doors,  — 
Nor  count  compartments  of  the  floors, 
But  mount  to  Paradise 
By  the  stairway  of  surprise.'  " 

Montaigne,  who  read  all  the  poets,  if  he  did  not 
discriminate  very  wisely  between  them,  said  also : 
"  Strange  to  say,  we  have  many  more  poets  than  we 
have  good  judges  and  interpreters  of  poetry ;  it  is 
easier  to  write  it  than  to  appreciate  it."  I  have 
already  said  that  Emerson  was  first  of  all  an  appre- 
ciator  of  poetry ;  and  Mr.  Arnold,  little  as  we  should 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  203 

guess  it  from  his  criticism  on  Emerson,  was  formerly 
capable  of  recognizing  poetry  when  he  saw  it.  In  his 
Introduction  to  that  valuable  collection,  "  Ward's 
English  Poets,"  Mr.  Arnold  wrote,  as  commentary  on 
Aristotle's  just  quoted  maxim,  — 

"  The  substance  and  matter  of  the  best  poetry  acquire 
their  special  character  from  possessing,  in  an  eminent 
degree,  truth  and  seriousness.  The  superior  character  of 
truth  and  seriousness  [by  which  he  means  Aristotle's 
"  philosophy  "  and  "  earnestness  "],  in  the  matter  and  sub 
stance  of  the  best  poetry,  is  inseparable  from  the  supe 
riority  of  diction  and  movement,  marking  its  style  and 
manner.  So  far  as  high  poetic  truth  and  seriousness  are 
wanting  to  a  poet's  matter  and  substance,  so  far  also  will 
a  high  poetic  stamp  of  diction  and  movement  be  wanting 
to  his  style  and  manner." 

Then  taking  up  that  wondrous  poet,  Chaucer,  of 
whom  Emerson  said,  "  I  think  he  has  lines  of  more 
force  than  any  English  writer  except  Shakspeare," — 
Mr.  Arnold  says  :  "  Something  is  wanting  to  the 
poetry  of  Chaucer  which  poetry  must  have  before  it 
can  be  placed  in  the  glorious  class  of  the  best ;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  what  that  something  is.  It  is  the 
earnestness,  the  high  and  excellent  seriousness,  which 
Aristotle  assigns  as  one  of  the  grand  virtues  of  poe 
try.  Chaucer's  view  of  things  and  his  criticism  of 
life  has  largeness,  freedom,  benignity ;  but  it  has  not 
this  high  seriousness.  Homer's  criticism  of  life  has 
it,  Dante's  has  it,  Shakspeare's  has  it ; "  and  he  might 
have  added,  for  it  is  eminently  true,  "  Emerson's  has 


204  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

it."  He  does  say,  however,  and  the  remark  is  more 
just  in  its  application  to  Emerson  than  to  any  except 
these  three,  "  The  greatness  of  the  great  poets,  the 
power  of  their  criticism  of  life,  is  that  their  virtue  is 
sustained,"  —  not  fitful  like  that  of  poor  Villon  the 
Trench  scamp-poet,  or  the  English  dramatists  of 
Shakspeare's  time.  And  then,  in  this  essay  of  four 
years  ago,  Mr.  Arnold  makes  these  just  observations 
concerning  Pope  and  Gray,  whom,  in  his  Emerson 
lecture,  he  had  the  whim  of  setting  above  our  poet  in 
point  of  style  :  — 

"  Do  you  ask  me  whether  Pope's  verse,  take  it  almost 
where  you  will,  is  not  good  1  — 

'  To  Hounslow  Heath  I  point,  and  Banstead  Down  ; 
Thence  conies  your  mutton,  and  these  chicks  my  own.' 

I  answer,  Admirable  for  the  purposes  of  a  high-priest  of 
an  age  of  prose  and  reason.  But  do  you  ask  me  whether 
such  verse  proceeds  from  men  with  an  adequate  poetic 
criticism  of  life ;  from  men  whose  criticism  of  life  has  a 
high  seriousness,  or  even  has  poetic  largeness,  freedom, 
insight,  benignity  ?  I  answer,  It  has  not  and  cannot  have 
them ;  it  is  the  poetry  of  the  builders  of  an  age  of  prose 
and  reason.  Though  they  may  write  in  verse,  though 
they  may  be  in  a  certain  sense  masters  of  the  art  of  versi 
fication,  Dryden  and  Pope  are  not  classics  of  our  poetry ; 
they  are  classics  of  our  prose.  Gray  is  our  poetical  clas 
sic  of  that  literature  and  age.  He  has  not  the  volume  or 
the  power  of  poets  who,  coming  in  times  more  favorable, 
have  attained  to  an  independent  criticism  of  life.  But  he 
lived  with  the  great  poets ;  he  lived,  above  all,  with  the 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  205 

Greeks,  and  he  caught  their  poetic  point  of  view  for  re 
garding  life.  The  point  of  view  and  the  poetic  manner 
are  not  self-sprung  in  him,  —  he  caught  them  of  others  ; 
and  he  had  not  the  free  and  abundant  use  of  them.  But 
whereas  Addison  and  Pope  never  had  the  use  of  them, 
Gray  had  the  use  of  them  at  times.  He  is  the  scantiest 
and  frailest  of  classics  in  our  poetry,  but  he  is  a  classic." 

This  is  unjust  to  Gray ;  but  it  was  far  more  unjust 
to  Emerson  to  place  Gray  above  him,  as  Mr.  Arnold 
did  last  winter.  In  one  point  only  did  Gray  excel 
Emerson,  —  in  the  art  of  versification ;  which  is  a 
lower  gift  than  either  poetic  insight  or  poetic  expres 
sion,  in  both  which  Emerson  greatly  excelled  Gray. 
But  in  "  high  seriousness,"  in  "  poetic  largeness,  free 
dom,  benignity,"  in  his  whole  criticism  of  life,  our  Con 
cord  poet-philosopher  stood  far  above  the  poet-pedant 
and  virtuoso  of  English  Cambridge,  sweet  and  stirring 
as  were  the  strains  of  Gray.  Compare  the  "Elegy  in 
a  Country  Churchyard"  with  the  "Threnody,"  the 
"  Dirge  "  and  "  In  Memoriam,"  —  contrast  these  two 
verses  only,  and  tell  me  which  is  the  greater  poet: — 

"  Can  storied  urn,  or  animated  bust, 

Back  to  its  mansion  call  the  fleeting  breath  ? 
Can  honor's  voice  provoke  the  silent  dust, 
Or  flatt'ry  soothe  the  dull,  cold  ear  of  death  ? 

"  Turn  the  key  and  bolt  the  door,  — 
Sweet  is  death  for  evermore. 
Nor  haughty  hope,  nor  swart  chagrin, 
Nor  murdering  hate  can  enter  in. 
All  is  now  secure  and  fast ; 
Not  the  gods  can  shake  the  Past." 


206  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Here  is  the  same  number  of  syllables  in  the  two 
competing  stanzas,  the  same  theme,  the  same  tone 
of  mind ;  but  how  much  higher  is  the  insight  of 
Emerson !  Or  compare,  if  your  love  for  Gray  does 
not  too  much  mortify  you  to  do  so,  his  Epitaph 
on  Sir  William  Williams,  with  Emerson's  Ode  on 
the  death  of  Colonel  Shaw.  The  English  hero  was 
killed  at  the  siege  of  Belleisle,  the  French  town 
from  which  our  friend  M.  de  Poyen  derives  his.  local 
name. 

THE  EPITAPH. 

Here,  foremost  in  the  dangerous  paths  of  fame, 
Young  Williams  fought  for  England's  fair  renown  ; 

His  mind  each  Muse,  each  Grace  adorned  his  frame, 
Nor  envy  dared  to  view  him  with  a  frown. 

At  Aix  his  voluntary  sword  he  drew, 

There  first  in  blood  his  infant  honor  sealed  ; 

From  fortune,  pleasure,  science,  love  he  flew, 
And  scorned  repose  when  Britain  took  the  field. 

"With  eyes  of  flame  and  cool  undaunted  breast, 
Victor  he  stood  on  Belleisle's  rocky  steeps  ; 

Ah,  gallant  youth  !  this  marble  tells  the  rest, 
Where  melancholy  friendship  bends  and  weeps. 

This  is  Gray,  not  at  his  best,  we  must  own,  —  but 
it  is  Gray  and  his  age.  Now  listen  to  Emerson,  who 
"  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time." 

THE  ODE. 

So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 

When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 

The  youth  replies,  /  can. 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  207 

Oh,  well  for  the  fortunate  soul 

"Which  music's  wings  infold, 

Stealing  away  the  memory 

Of  sorrows  new  and  old  ! 

Yet  happier  he  whose  inward  sight, 

Stayed  on  his  subtile  thought, 

Shuts  his  sense  on  toys  of  time 

To  vacant  bosoms  brought. 

But  best  befriended  of  the  God 

He  who  in  evil  times, 

"Warned  by  an  inward  voice, 

Heeds  not  the  darkness  and  the  dread  ; 

Biding  by  his  rule  and  choice, 

Feeling  only  the  fiery  thread 

Leading  over  heroic  ground, 

"Walled  with  mortal  terror  round, 

To  the  aim  which  him  allures  ; 

And  the  sweet  Heaven  his  deed  secures. 

Peril  around,  all  else  appalling, 

Cannon  in  front  and  leaden  rain, 

Him  Duty  through  the  clarion  calling 

To  the  van,  called  not  in  vain. 

Stainless  soldier  on  the  walls, 

Knowing  this,  — and  knows  no  more,  — 

Whoever  fights,  whoever  falls, 

Justice,  after  as  before, 

Justice  conquers  evermore  ; 

And  he  who  battles  on  her  side, 

God,  though  he  were  ten  times  slain, 

Crowns  him  victor  glorified, 

Victor  over  death  and  pain. 

Here  ends  the  memorial  ode  ;  but  then  the  poet, 
having  paid  his  tribute  to  courage  and  friendship, 
resumes  the  perpetual  chant  which  celebrates  the 


208  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

might  of  the  Unseen  Powers,  and  which  distinguishes 
Emerson's  verse  among  all  the  oracles  of  the  modern 
world :  — 

THE   EPODE. 

Blooms  the  laurel  which  belongs 

To  the  valiant  chief  who  fights  ; 
I  see  the  wreath,  I  hear  the  songs 

Lauding  the  Eternal  Rights, 
Victors  over  daily  wrongs  ; 

Awful  victors,  they  misguide 

Whom  they  will  destroy, 
And  their  coming  triumph  hide 

In  our  downfall,  or  our  joy  : 
They  reach  no  term  —  they  never  sleep  — 
In  equal  strength  through  space  abide  ; 
Though,  feigning  dwarfs,  they  crouch  and  creep, 
The  strong  they  slay,  the  swift  outstride  ; 
Fate's  grass  grows  rank  in  valley  clods, 
And  rankly  on  the  castled  steep,  — 
Speak  it  firmly  !  these  are  gods, 
All  are  ghosts  beside. 

If  we  would  restore  Gray  to  anything  like  his  fair 
place  among  poets  after  this  mortifying  comparison, 
we  must  turn  to  his  best  ode,  "  The  Bard,"  which  in 
expression,  not  in  theme  nor  insight,  is  on  a  level 
with  Emerson's  best  verse  :  — 

"  On  a  rock  whose  haughty  brow 
Frowns  o'er  old  Conway's  foaming  flood, 

Robed  in  the  sable  garb  of  woe, 
With  haggard  eyes  the  poet  stood  ; 
(Loose  his  beard,  and  hoary  hair 
Streamed,  like  a  meteor,  to  the  troubled  air)  ; 
And,  with  a  master's  hand,  a  prophet's  fire, 
Struck  the  deep  sorrows  of  his  lyre  :  — 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  209 

*  Hark  !  how  each  giant-oak,  and  desert  cave, 

Sighs  to  the  torrent's  awful  voice  beneath  ! 

O'er  thee,  0  King,  their  hundred  arms  they  wave, 

Revenge  on  thce  in  hoarser  murmurs  breathe  ; 

Yocal  no  more,  since  Cambria's  fatal  day, 

To  high-born  Hoel's  harp,  or  soft  Llewellyn's  lay. 

Cold  is  Cadwallo's  tongue 

That  hushed  the  stormy  main  ; 
Brave  Urien  sleeps  upon  his  craggy  bed  ; 

Mountains,  ye  mourn  in  vain 

Modred,  whose  magic  song 
Made  huge  Plinlimmon  bow  his  cloud-topped  head. 

On  dreary  Arvon's  shore  they  lie 
Smeared  with  gore,  and  ghastly  pale  : 
Far,  far  aloof  the  affrighted  ravens  sail ; 

The  famished  eagle  screams,  and  passes  by. 
Dear  lost  companions  of  my  tuneful  art  ! 

Dear  as  the  light  that  visits  these  sad  eyes, 
Dear  as  the  ruddy  drops  that  warm  my  heart,  — 

Ye  died  amidst  your  dying  country's  cries. 
Ko  more  I  weep.     They  do  not  sleep. 

On  yonder  cliffs,  a  grisly  band, 
I  see  them  sit,  —  they  linger  yet, 

Avengers  of  their  native  land. 

Fond  impious  man  !  think'st  thou  yon  sanguine  cloud, 

Raised  by  thy  breath,  has  quenched  the  orb  of  day  ? 
To-morrow  he  repairs  the  golden  flood 

And  warms  the  nations  with  redoubled  ray. 
Enough  for  me  ;  with  joy  I  see 

The  different  doom  our  fates  assign, 
Be  thine  despair,  and  sceptred  care,  — 

To  triumph,  and  to  die,  are  mine.' 
He  spoke,  and  headlong  from  the  mountain's  height 
Deep  in  the  roaring  tide  he  plunged  to  endless  night." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Gray  wrote  verse  with  more 
skill  and  harmony  than  Emerson :  so  far  Mr.  Arnold 

14 


210  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

was  correct  in  his  criticism.  But  then  how  little  had 
Gray  to  utter  in  verse,  compared  with  the  oracles  and 
canticles  of  Emerson  !  "  Byron  had  nothing  to  say, 
but  he  said  it  magnificently  ! "  was  the  pithy  verdict 
of  Emerson  on  his  youthful  favorite,  whom  he  some 
times  quoted  in  his  Essays.  We  measure  poets  first 
by  what  they  tell  us,  next  by  the  words  they  use,  and 
lastly  by  the  skill  with  which  they  weave  these  words 
into  verse.  "  Homer's  words,"  says  Aristotle,  in  the  Po 
etics,  "  are  the  only  words  that  have  energy,  movement, 
and  action  ;  they  are  words  of  substance."  Emerson, 
also,  used  words  of  this  sort;  and  in  one  of  his  unpub 
lished  pieces,  "  The  Discontented  Poet,"  he  thus  de 
scribed  in  fanciful  terms  the  poet's  dictionary :  — 

"  The  gallant  child,  where'er  he  came, 
Threw  to  each  fact  a  tuneful  name. 
The  things  whereon  he  cast  his  eyes 
Could  not  the  nations  rebaptize, 
Nor  Time's  snows  hide  the  names  he  set, 
Nor  last  posterity  forget. 
Yet  every  scroll  whereon  he  wrote 
In  latent  fire  his  secret  thought, 
Fell  unregarded  to  the  ground, 
Unseen  by  such  as  stood  around. 
The  pious  wind  took  it  away, 
The  reverent  darkness  hid  the  lay. 
Methought  like  water-haunting  birds, 
Divers  or  dippers,  were  his  words  ; 
And  idle  clowns  beside  the  mere 
At  the  new  vision  gape  and  jeer  ; 
But  when  the  noisy  scorn  was  past, 
Emerge  the  winged  words  in  haste. 
New-bathed,  new-trimmed,  on  healthy  wing, 
Eight  to  the  heaven  they  steer  and  sing." 


EMERSON  AMONG   THE  POETS.  211 

This  is  the  history  of  every  poet's  dialect,  so  far  as 
he  makes  it  anew ;  and  such  has  been  the  fortune  of 
Emerson's.  His  vocabulary  is  rich  and  novel,  and 
he  has  brought  it  well  into  acceptance.  But  in  mar 
shalling  these  words  he  felt  his  inadequacy,  and  in 
this  was  the  "  discontented  poet "  of  whom  he  wrote. 
He  lamented  his  imperfect  use  of  the  metrical  faculty, 
which  he  felt  all  the  more  keenly  in  contrast  with 
the  melodious  thoughts  he  had  to  utter,  and  the  fit 
ting  words  in  which  he  could  clothe  these  thoughts. 
He  would  have  written  much  more  in  verse  if  he  had 
been  content  witli  his  own  metrical  expression  as 
constantly  as  he  was  delighted  with  it  sometimes. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  he  purposely  roughened  his 
verse,  and  threw  in  superfluous  lines  and  ill-matched 
rhymes,  as  a  kind  of  protest  against  the  smoothness 
and  jingle  of  what  he  called  "  poetry  to  put  round 
frosted  cake."  The  passage  from  his  "  Merlin,"  which 
Mr.  Albee  has  quoted  to  us,  is  preceded  by  this  intro 
duction  to  that  great  but  unequal  poem  :  — 


"  Thy  trivial  harp  will  never  please 

Or  fill  my  craving  ear  ; 
Its  chords  should  ring  as  blows  the  breeze, 

Free,  peremptory,  clear. 
No  jingling  serenader's  art, 

Nor  tinkle  of  piano  strings, 
Can  make  the  wild  blood  start 

In  its  mystic  springs. 
The  kingly  bard 

Must  smite  the  chords  rudely  and  hard, 
As  with  hammer  or  with  mace  ; 


212  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

That  they  may  render  "back 
Artful  thunder,  which  conveys 
Secrets  of  the  solar  track, 
Sparks  of  the  supersolar  blaze. 
Merlin's  blows  are  strokes  of  fate. 

"  By  Sybarites  beguiled, 
He  shall  no  task  decline  ; 
Merlin's  mighty  line 
Extremes  of  nature  reconciled,  — 
Bereaved  a  tyrant  of  his  will, 
And  made  the  lion  mild." 

Pursuing  this  thought  of  the  magical  power  which 
the  poet  can  wield,  and  which  he  strove  to  attain, 
Emerson  closes  "  Merlin  "  with  these  lines  :  — 

"  Subtle  rhymes  with  ruin  rife, 
Murmur  in  the  house  of  life, 
Sung  by  the  Sisters  as  they  spin  ; 
In  perfect  time  and  measure  they 
Build  and  unbuild  our  echoing  clay, 
As  the  two  twilights  of  the  day 
Fold  us  music-drunken  in." 

In  the  "  Bacchus,"  which  stands  next  to  "  Merlin  " 
in  the  volumes,  the  same  theme  is  carried  forward, 
with  a  change  of  imagery  ;  and  I  may  properly  close 
with  its  mystical  aspiration,  which  leaves  our  poet  in 
the  timeless,  immortal  existence,  out  of  which  he 
came  and  to  which  he  has  returned, — a  pilgrim  of 
the  eternal  and  melodious  spheres.  It  has  been  read 
in  part  by  Miss  Peabody,  but  you  will  easily  pardon 
the  repetition. 


EMERSON  AMONG  THE  POETS.  213 


BACCHUS. 

"We  buy  diluted  wine  ; 

Give  me  of  the  true,  — 

"\Vhose  ample  leaves  and  tendrils  curled 

Among  the  silver  hills  of  heaven, 

Draw  everlasting  dew ; 

Wine  of  wine,  blood  of  the  world, 

Form  of  forms,  and  mould  of  statures, 

That  I,  intoxicated, 

And  by  the  draught  assimilated, 

Hay  float  at  pleasure  through  all  natures  ; 

The  bird-language  rightly  spell, 

And  that  which  roses  say  so  well. 

"Wine  which  Music  is,  — 

Music  and  wine  are  one,  — 

That  I,  drinking  this, 

Shall  hear  far  Chaos  talk  with  me  ; 

Kings  unborn  shall  walk  with  me  ; 

And  the  poor  grass  shall  plot  and  plan 

"What  it  will  do  when  it  is  man. 

Quickened  so,  will  I  unlock 

Every  crypt  of  every  rock. 

I  thank  the  joyful  juice 
For  all  I  know  ;  — 
"Winds  of  remembering 
Of  the  ancient  being  blow, 
And  seeming-solid  walls  of  use 
Open  and  flow. 

Pour,  Bacchus  !  the  remembering  wine  ; 
Retrieve  the  loss  of  me  and  mine  ! 
Vine  for  vine  be  antidote, 
And  the  grape  requite  the  lote  ! 


214  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Haste  to  cure  the  old  despair,  — 

Reason  in  Nature's  lotus  drenched, 

The  memory  of  ages  quenched,  — 

Give  them  again  to  shine  ; 

Let  wine  repair  what  this  undid  ; 

And  where  the  infection  slid, 

A  dazzling  memory  revive  ; 

Refresh  the  faded  tints, 

Recut  the  aged  prints, 

And  write  my  old  adventures  with  the  pen 

Which  on  the  first  day  drew, 

Upon  the  tablets  blue, 

The  dancing  Pleiads  and  eternal  men. 


POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON.          215 


VIII. 

POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON. 
I. 

SOXXET  OF  1884.  —  Miss  EMMA  LAZARUS. 

y 

TO  E.   W.   E. 

As,  when  a  father  dies,  his  children  draw 

About  the  empty  hearth,  their  loss  to  cheat 

With  uttered  praise  and  love,  and  oft  repeat 

His  all-familiar  words  with  whispered  awe,  — 

The  honored  habit  of  his  daily  law ; 

Not  for  his  sake,  but  theirs,  whose  feebler  feet 

Need  still  that  guiding  lamp,  whose  faith  less  sweet 

Misses  that  tempered  patience  without  flaw ;  — 

So  do  we  gather  round  thy  vacant  chair, 

In  thine  own  elm-roofed,  amber-rivered  town, 

Master  and  father !     For  the  love  we  bear, 

Not  for  thy  fame's  sake,  do  we  weave  this  crown, 

And  feel  thy  presence  in  the  sacred  air, 

Forbidding  us  to  weep  that  thou  art  gone. 

NEW  YORK,  May,  1884. 


216  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

II. 

ODE  OF  1845.  —  ELLERY  CHANNING. 

IF  we  should  rake  the  bottom  of  the  sea 

For  its  best  treasures, 

And  heap  our  measures,  — 
If  we  should  ride  upon  the  winds,  and  be 

Partakers  of  their  flight 

By  day  and  through  the  night, 
Intent  upon  this  business,  —  to  find  gold,  — 
Yet  were  thy  story  perfectly  untold. 

Such  waves  of  wealth  are  rolled  up  in  thy  soul,  • 
Such  swelling  argosies 
Laden  with  Time's  supplies, — 

Such  pure,  delicious  wine  shines  in  the  bowl, 
We  could  drink  evermore 
Upon  the  glittering  shore,  — 

Drink  of  the  pearl-dissolved,  brilliant  cup, 

Be  madly  drunk,  and  drown  our  thirsting  up. 

This  vessel  richly  chased  about  the  rim 

With  golden  emblems  is,  — 

The  utmost  art  of  bliss ; 
With  figures  of  the  azure  gods  who  swim 

In  the  enchanted  sea 

Contrived  for  deity, 

Floating  in  rounded  shells  of  purple  hue ; 
The  sculptor  died  in  carving  this  so  true. 


POEMS  IX  HOSOR   OF  EMERSON.          217 

Some  dry  uprooted  saplings  we  have  seen, 

Pretend  to  even 

Tliis  grove  of  Heaven,  — 
This  sacred  forest  where  the  foliage  green 

Breathes  music  like  mild  lutes, 

Or  silver-coated  flutes, 
Or  the  concealing  winds  that  can  convey 
Never  their  tone  to  the  rude  ear  of  Day. 

Some  weary-footed  mortals  we  have  found 

Adventuring  after  thee ; 

They,  rooted,  —  as  a  tree 
Pursues  a  swift  breeze  o'er  a  rocky  ground, — 

Thy  grand  imperial  flight 

Sweeping  thee  far  from  sight,  — 
As  sweeps  the  movement  of  a  southern  blast 
Across  the  heated  Gulf,  and  bends  the  niast. 

The  circles  of  thy  thought  shine  vast  as  stars ; 

No  glass  shall  round  them, 

No  plummet  sound  them, 
They  hem  the  observer  like  bright  steel- wrought  bars ; 

Yet  limpid  as  the  sun, 

Or  as  bright  waters  run 
From  the  cold  fountain  of  an  Alpine  spring, 
Or  diamonds  richly  set  in  the  King's  ring. 

The  piercing  of  thy  soul  scorches  the  thought, 

As  great  fires  burning, 

Or  sunlight  turning 
Into  a  focus ;  in  its  meshes  caught, 


218  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

Our  palpitating  minds 

Show  stupid,  like  coarse  hinds ; 

So  strong  and  composite  through  all  thy  powers 

The  Intellect  divine  serenely  towers. 

This  heavy  castle's  gates  no  man  can  ope, 

Unless  the  lord  doth  will, 

To  prove  his  skill 
And  read  the  fates  hid  in  his  horoscope ; 

No  man  may  enter  there 

But  first  shall  kneel  in  prayer, 
And  to  superior  gods  orisons  say,  — 
Powers  of  old  time,  unveiled  in  busy  Day. 

Thou  need'st  not  search  for  men  in  Sidney's  times 

Or  Raleigh  fashion, 

And  Herbert's  passion,  — 
For  us  these  are  but  dry  preserved  limes ; 

There  is  ripe  fruit  to-day 

Hangs  yellow  in  display 
Upon  the  waving  garment  of  the  bough ; 
The  graceful  Gentleman  lives  for  us  now. 

Neither  must  thou  turn  back  to  Angelo, 

Who  Rome  commanded, 

And,  single-handed, 
Was  architect,  poet,  and  bold  sculptor  too : 

Behold  a  better  thing 

When  the  pure  Mind  can  sing ; 
When  true  philosophy  is  linked  with  verse, 
When  moral  laws  in  rhyme  themselves  rehearse. 


POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON.  219 

The  smart  and  pathos  of  our  suffering  race 

Bear  thee  no  harm ; 

Thy  muscular  arm 
The  daily  ills  of  living  doth  efface. 

The  sources  of  the  spring 

From  whence  thy  instincts  wing 
Unsounded  are  by  lines  of  sordid  day ; 
Enclosed  with  inlaid  walls  thy  virtue's  way. 

In  city's  street  how  often  shall  we  hear 

It  is  a  period 

Deprived  of  every  god, 
A  time  of  indecision,  and  doom's  near; 

"What  foolish  altercation 

Threatens  to  break  the  nation  ! 
All  men  turned  talkers,  and  much  good  forgot,  — 
With  score  of  curious  troubles  we  know  not. 

By  this  account  their  learning  you  shall  read, 

Who  tell  the  story 

So  sad  and  gory,  — 
People  that  you  can  never  seek  in  need; 

The  pygmies  of  the  race, 

Who  crowd  the  airy  space 
With  counterfeit  presentments  of  the  Man 
Who  has  done  all  things  —  all  things  surely  can. 

We  never  heard  thee  babble  in  this  wise, 

Thou  age-creator, 

And  clear  debater 
Of  that  which  this  good  Present  underlies ; 


220  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Thy  course  was  better  kept, 
Than  where  the  dreamers  slept ; 
Thy  sure  meridian  taken  by  the  sun, 
Thy  compass  pointing  true  as  waters  run. 

In  vain  for  us  to  say  what  thou  hast  been 

To  our  occasion, — 

This  flickering  nation, 
This  stock  of  people  from  an  English  kin,  — 

And  he  who  led  the  van, 

The  frozen  Puritan, 

We  thank  thee  for  thy  patience  with  his  faith, 
That  chill  delusive  poison  mixed  for  death. 

So  moderate  in  thy  lessons,  and  so  wise, 

To  foes  so  courteous, 

To  friends  so  duteous, 
And  hospitable  to  the  neighbors'  eyes  ; 

Thy  thoughts  have  fed  the  lamp 

In  Learning's  polished  camp ; 
But  who  suspects  thee  of  this  well-earned  fame, 
Or  meditates  on  thy  renowned  name  ? 

The  pins  of  custom  have  not  pierced  through  thee 

(Thy  shining  armor 

A  perfect  charmer),  — r- 
Even  the  hornets  of  divinity 

Allow  thee  a  -brief  space ; 

And  thy  thought  has  a  place 
Upon  the  well-bound  library's  chaste  shelves, 
Where  man  of  various  wisdom  rarely  delves. 


POEMS  IN  HONOR   OF  EMERSON.  221 

Within  thy  books  the  world  is  plainly  set 

Before  our  vision, 

Thou  keen  physician ! 
We  find  there,  wisely  writ,  what  we  have  met 

Along  the  dusty  path, 

And  o'er  the  aftermath, 

Where  natures  once  world-daring  held  the  scythe, 
Nor  paid  to  superstition  a  mean  tithe. 

Great  persons  are  the  epochs  of  the  race ; 

Then  royal  Xature 

Takes  form  and  feature, 
And  careless  handles  the  surrounding  space ; 

The  age  is  vain  and  thin, 

A  pageant  of  gay  sin, 
Without  heroic  response  from  that  soul 
Through  which  the  tides  diviner  amply  roll. 

When  thou  dost  pass  below  the  forest  shade, 

The  branches  drooping 

Enfold  thee,  stooping 
Above  thy  figure,  and  form  thus  a  glade ; 

The  flowers  admire  thee  pass, 

In  much  content  the  grass 
Awaits  the  pressure  of  thy  firmest  feet ; 
The  bird  for  thee  sends  out  his  greeting  sweet. 

And  welcomes  thee,  designed,  the  angry  storm, 

When  deep-toned  thunder 

Steals  up  from  under 
The  heavy-folded  clouds ;  and  on  thy  form 


222  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

The  lightning  glances  gay, 

With  its  perplexing  ray, 

And  sweep  across  thy  path  the  speeding  showers ; 
This  pageantry  doth  fill  thy  outward  hours. 

Upon  the  rivers  thou  dost  float  at  peace, 

Or  on  the  ocean 

Feelest  the  motion ; 
Of  every  natural  form  thou  hast  the  lease,  — 

Because  thy  way  lies  there 

Where  it  is  good  arid  fair. 
Thou  hast  perception,  learning,  and  much  art, 
Propped  by  the  columns  of  a  stately  heart. 

From  the  deep  mysteries  thy  goblet  fills ; 

The  wines  do  murmur 

That  Nature  warmed  her, 
When  she  was  pressing  out  from  must  the  hills, 

The  plains  that  near  us  lie*, 

The  foldings  of  the  sky ; 
Whate'er  within  the  horizon's  bound  there  is, 
From  Hades'  caldron  to  the  blue  God's  bliss. 

We  may  no  more ;  so  might  we  sing  fore'er, 

Thy  thought  recalling ; 

Thus  waters  falling 
Over  great  cataracts  from  their  lakes  do  bear 

The  power  that  is  divine, 

And  bends  their  stately  line  : 
All  but  thy  beauty  the  cold  verses  have, 
All  but  thy  music,  organ-mellowed  nave. 


POEMS  IN  HOXOR   OF  EMERSON.  223 

NOTE.  —  In  connection  with  this  Ode  of  Mr.  Channing  which 
was  read  at  the  School  of  Philosophy  from  his  second  volume  of 
"Poems"  (Boston,  1847),  there  was  also  read  an  ode  by  the  same 
poet  to  a  son  of  Mr.  Emersoii  when  three  years  old,  from  which,  at 
the  desire  of  many  who  heard  it,  the  following  lines  are  here  printed. 
The  whole  poem  may  be  found  in  a  little  volume  called  "The 
Woodman  and  other  Poems  "  (Boston,  1849),  which  has  long  been 
out  of  print,  but  exists  in  libraries  here  and  there  :  — 

"  Child  of  the  Good  Divinity, 

Child  of  one 
Who  shines  on  me 

Like  a  most  friendly  sun; 
Child  of  the  azure  sky 
(Who  has  outdone  it  in  that  eye, 
That  trellised  window  in  unfathomed  blue),  — 
Child  of  the  midworld,  sweet  and  true  ! 
Child  of  the  combing  crystal  spheres 
Throned  above  this  salt  pool  of  tears,  — 

Child  of  immortality, 
Why  hast  t-hou  come  to  cheat  the  Destiny  ? 

"  By  the  sweet  mouth  half-parted  in  a  smile, 

By  all  thou  art,  — 

By  the  pat  beating  of  thy  criss-cross  heart,  — 
How  couldst  thou  light  on  this  plain  homespun  shore  ? 
And  —  not  upon  thy  own  aerial  riding  — 
Fall  down  on  earth,  where  turbid  sadly  pour 
The  old  perpetual  rivers  of  backsliding  if 

"Since  thou  art  fast 
On  our  autumnal  ball, 

Of  thistle  and  specked  grass  weave  thee  a  nest; 
Renounce  (if  possible)  the  mighty  air-spanned  hall, 

Cups  of  imperial  nectar, 
Vases  of  transparent  porphyry, 
Amethystine  rings  of  splendor, 
Bright  footstools  of  chalcedony,  — 


224  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

The  alabaster  bed, 

Where  in  the  plume  of  seraph  sunk  thy  head, 

To  the  full-sounding  organ  of  the  sphere, 

So  amorously  played 

By  the  smooth,  hyaline  finger  of  thy  peer  ! 
Be  those  blue  eyes 

Thy  only  atmosphere  ! 
For  in  them  lies 

What  is  than  earth,  than  heaven  more  dear." 


III. 

ODE  OF  1882.  —  F.  B.  SANBORN. 

I. 

ACROSS  these  meadows,  o'er  the  hills, 

Beside  our  sleeping  waters,  hurrying  rills, 

Through  many  a  woodland  dark  and  many  a  bright 

arcade, 

Where  out  and  in  the  shifting  sunbeams  braid 
An  Indian  mat  of  checkered  light  and  shade,  — 
The  sister  seasons  in  their  maze, 
Since  last  we  wakened  here 
From  hot  siesta  the  still  drowsy  year, 
Have  led  the  fourfold  dance  along  our  ways ;  — 
Autumn  apparelled  sadly  gay, 
Winter's  white  furs  and  shortened  day. 
Spring's  loitering  footstep,  quickened  at  the  last, 
And  half  the  affluent  Summer  went  and  came, 
As  for  uncounted  years  the  same,  — 
Ah  me  !  another  unreturning  spring  hath  passed. 


POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON.          225 

II. 

"  When  the  young  die,"  the  Grecian  mourner  said, 
"  The  spring-time  from  the  year  hath  vanished," 
The  gray-haired  poet,  in  unfading  youth, 
Sits  by  the  shrine  of  Truth, 
Her  oracles  to  spell, 
And  their  deep  meaning  tell ; 
Or  else  he  chants  a  bird-like  note 
From  that  thick-bearded  throat 
"Which  warbled  forth  the  songs  of  smooth-cheeked 

May 

Beside  Youth's  sunny  fountain  all  the  day ; 
Sweetly  the  echoes  ring- 
As  in  the  flush  of  spring  ; 
At  last  the  poet  dies, 
The  sunny  fountain  dries,  — 
The  oracles  are  dumb,  no  more  the  wood-birds  sing. 

m. 

Homer  forsakes  the  billowy  round 
Of  sailors  circling  o'er  the  island-sea  ; 
Pindar,  from  Theban  fountains  and  the  mound 
Builded  in  love  and  woe  by  doomed  Antigone, 
Must  pass  beneath  the  ground  ; 
Stout  ^Eschylus  that  slew  the  deep-haired  Mede 
At  Marathon,  at  Salamis,  and  freed 
Athens  from  Persian  thrall, 
Then  sung  the  battle-call, — 
Must  yield  to  that  one  foe  he  could  not  quell ; 
In  Gela's  flowery  plain  he  slumbers  well. 

15 


226  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Sicilian  roses  bloom 

Above  his  nameless  tomb, 

And  there  the  nightingale  doth  mourn  in  vain 

For  Bion,  too,  who  sang  the  Dorian  strain  : 

By  Arethusa's  tide 

His  brother  swains  might  flute  in  Dorian  mood, 

The  bird  of  love  in  thickets  of  the  wood 

Sing  for  a  thousand  years  his  grave  beside,  — 

Yet  Bion  still  was  mute,  —  the  Dorian  lay  had  died. 

IV. 

The  Attic  poet  at  approach  of  age 

Laid  by  his  garland,  took  the  staff  arid  scrip, 

For  singing-robes  the  mantle  of  the  sage, 

And  taught  gray  wisdom  with  the  same  grave  lip 

That  once  had  carolled  gay, 

Where  silver  flutes  breathed  soft,  and  festal  harps 

did  play; 

Young  Plato  sang  of  love  and  beauty's  charm, 
While  he  that  from  Stagira  came  to  hear, 
In  lyric  measures  bade  his  princely  pupil  arm 
And  strike  the  Persian  tyrant  mute  witli  fear. 
High  thought  doth  well  accord  with  melody, 
Brave  deed  with  Poesy, 

And  song  is  prelude  fair  to  sweet  Philosophy. 
But  wiser  still  was  Shakspeare's  noble  choice, 
Poet  and  sage  at  once,  whose  varied  voice 
Taught   beyond  Plato's  ken  while   charming   every 

ear,  — 
A  kindred  choice  was  his,  our  poet,  sage,  and  seer  ! 


POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON.  227* 

V. 

Now  Avon  glides  through  Severn  to  the  sea, 

And  murmurs  that  her  Shakspeare  sings  no  more  ; 

Thames  bears  the  freight  of  many  a  tribute  shore, 

But  on  those  banks  her  poet  bold  and  free, 

That  stooped  in  blindness  at  his  lowly  door, 

Yet  never  bowed  to  priest  or  prince  the  knee, 

Wanders  no  more  by  those  sad  sisters  led ; 

Herbert  and  Spenser  dead 

Have  left  their  names  alone  to  him  whose  scheme 

Stiffly  endeavors  to  supplant  the  dream 

Of  seer  and  poet,  with  mechanic  rule 

Learned  from  the  chemist's  closet,  from  the  surgeon's 

tool. 

With  us  Philosophy  still  spreads  her  wing, 
And  soars  to  seek  Heaven's  King,  — 
Nor  creeps  through  charnels,  prying  with  the  glass 
That  makes  the  little  big,  —  while  gods  unseen  may 

pass. 

VI. 

Along  the  marge  of  these  slow-gliding  streams, 
Our  winding  Concord  and  the  wider  flow 
Of  Charles  by  Cambridge,  walks  and  dreams 
A  throng  of  poets,  —  tearfully  they  go, 
For  each  bright  river  misses  from  its  band 
The  keenest  eye,  the  truest  heart,  the  surest  minstrel- 
hand,  — 

They  sleep  each  on  his  wooded  hill  above  the  sorrow 
ing  land. 


>  228  THE   GENIUS    OF  EMERSON. 

Sadly  their  mound  with  garlands  we  adorn 

Of  violet,  lily,  laurel,  and  the  flowering  thorn,  — 

Sadly  above  them  wave 

The  wailing  pine-trees  of  their  native  strand  ; 

Sadly  the  distant  billows  smite  the  shore, 

Plash  in  the  sunlight,  or  at  midnight  roar  : 

All  sounds  of  melody,  all  things  sweet  and  fair, 

On  earth,  in  sea  or  air, 

Droop  and  grow  silent  by  the  poet's  grave. 

VII. 

Yet  wherefore  weep  ?     Old  age  is  but  a  tomb, 

A  living  hearse,  slow  creeping  to  the  gloom 

And  utter  silence.     He  from  age  is  freed 

Who  meets  the  stroke  of  death,  and  rises  thence 

Victor  o'er  every  woe  ;  his  sure  defence 

Is  swift  defeat,  —  by  that  he  doth  succeed  : 

Death  is  the  poet's  friend,  —  I  speak  it  sooth  ; 

Death  shall  restore  him  to  his  golden  youth, 

Unlock  for  him  the  portal  of  renown, 

And  on  Fame's  tablet  write  his  verses  down 

For  every  age  in  endless  time  to  read. 

With  us  Death's  quarrel  is  ;  he  takes  away 

Joy  from  our  eyes,  —  from  this  dark  world  the  day, 

When  other  skies  he  opens  to  the  poet's  ray. 

VIII. 

Lonely  these  meadows  green, 
Silent  these  warbling  woodlands  must  appear 
To  us,  by  whom  our  Poet-sage  was  seen 
Wandering  among  their  beauties,  year  by  year,  — 


POEMS  IN  HONOR  OF  EMERSON.          229 

Listening  with  delicate  ear 

To  each,  fine  note  that  fell  from  tree  or  sky, 

Or  rose  from  earth  on  high,  — 

Glancing  his  falcon  eye, 

In  kindly  radiance,  as  of  some  young  star, 

At  all  the  shows  of  Mature  near  and  far, 

Or  on  the  tame  procession  plodding  by 

Of  daily  toil  and  care,  — and  all  Life's  pageantry  ; 

Then  darting  forth  warm  beams  of  wit  and  love, 

Wide  as  the  sun's  great  orbit,  and  as  high  above 

These  paths  wherein  our  lowly  tasks  we  ply. 

IX. 

His  was  the  task  and  his  the  lordly  gift 
Our  eyes,  our  hearts,  bent  earthward,  to  uplift; 
He  found  us  chained  in  Plato's  fabled  cave, 
Our  faces  long  averted  from  the  blaze 
Of  Heaven's  broad  light,  and  idly  turned  to  gaze 
On  shadows,  flitting  ceaseless  as  the  wave 
That  dashes  ever  idly  on  some  isle  enchanted ; 
By  shadows  haunted 

We  sat,  —  amused  in  youth,  in  manhood  daunted. 
In  vacant  age  forlorn, — then  slipped  within  the  grave, 
The  same  dull  chain  still  clasped  around  our  shroud. 
These  captives,  bound  and  bowed, 
He  from  their  dungeon  like  that  angel  led, 
Who  softly  to  imprisoned  Peter  said, 
"  Arise  up  quickly  !  gird  thyself  and  flee  ! " 
We  wist  not  wrhose  the  thrilling  voice,  we  knew  our 
souls  were  free. 


230  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

X. 

Ah  !  blest  those  years  of  youthful  hope, 

When    every    "breeze    was    zephyr,   every   mornin< 

May ! 

Then,  as  we  bravely  climbed  the  slope 
Of  life's  steep  mount,  we  gained  a  wider  scope 
At  every  stair,  —  and  could  with  joy  survey 
The  track  beneath  us,  and  the  upward  way ; 
Both  lay  in  light,  —  round  both  the  breath  of  love 
Fragrant  and  warm  from  Heaven's  own  tropic  blew ; 
Beside  us  what  glad  comrades  smiled  and  strove ! 
Beyond  us  what  dim  visions  rose  to  view  I 
With  thee,  dear  Master,  through  that  morning  land 
We  journeyed  happy ;  thine  the  guiding  hand, 
Thine  the  far-looking  eye,  the  dauntless  smile ; 
Thy  lofty  song  of  hope  did  the  long  march  beguile. 

XI. 

Now  scattered  wide  and  lost  to  loving  sight 

The  gallant  train 

That  heard  thy  strain  ! 

'T  is  May  no  longer,  —  shadows  of  the  night 

Beset  the  downward  path,  thy  light  withdrawn,  — 

And  with  thee  vanished  that  perpetual  dawn 

Of  which  thou  wert  the  harbinger  and  seer. 

Yet  courage  !  comrades,  —  though  no  more  we  hear 

Each  other's  voices,  lost  within  this  cloud 

That  Time  and  Chance  about  our  way  have  cast,  — 

Still  his  brave  music  haunts  the  hearkening  ear, 


POEMS  IN  HONOR   OF  EMERSON.  231 

As  'mid  bold  cliffs  and  dewy  passes  of  the  Past. 
Be  that  our  countersign  !  for  chanting  loud, 
His  magic  song,  though  far  apart  we  go, 
Best  shall  we  thus  discern  both  friend  and  foe. 

CONCORD,  May,  1882. 


IV. 

TWO  SOXXETS.  —  MRS.  E.  C.  KINNEY. 
EMERSON. 


LIKE  some  old  Titan  of  majestic  height, 

His  march  has  been  with  grand  and  solemn  tread, 

The  brain  profoundly  working,  while  the  head, 

Circled  by  mists,  was  often  hid  from  sight ; 

Yet  from  its  cloud,  when  great   thought   flashed   to 

light, 

That  mighty  brain  by  the  elect  was  read ; 
The  many  saw  not,  turned  away  instead, 
His  brightness,  veiled,  to  them  was  only  night. 
But,  as  he  walked,  anon  at  either  side 
Fell  pregnant  seeds  of  thought,  which,  taking  root 
In  minds  long  barren,  showed  the  tender  shoot 
That  later  blossomed, :  clouds  might  genius  hide, 
Yet  everywhere  the  great  man  planted  foot, 
His  mark  remains,  and  shall  through  time  abide. 

NEW  YORK,  April,  1882. 


232  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

II. 

DEAR  Nature's  Child,  he  nestled  close  to  Her ! 
She  to  his  heart  had  whispered  deeper  things 
Than  Science  from  the  wells  of  learning  brings : 
His  still  small  voice  the  human  soul  could  stir, 
For  Nature  made  him  her  interpreter, 
And  gave  her  favorite  son  far-reaching  wings,  — 
He  soared  and  sang  (as  Heaven's  lark  only  sings) 
Devout  in  praise,  Truth's  truest  worshipper. 
With  eyes  anointed  in  his  upward  flight, 
He  quick  discerned  what  was  divine  iri  men,  — 
Beading  the  humblest  spirit's  tongue  aright : 
Oh,  Prophet,  Poet,  Leader !  in  thy  light 
How  many  saw  beyond  their  natural  ken, 
Who  follow  now  the  star  which  led  them  then ! 

NEW  CASTLE,  N.  H.,  Sept.  5,  1884. 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  233 


IX. 

EMERSON'S  ETHICS. 

BY   EDWIX   D.    MEAD. 

I  THIXK  the  only  thing  which  will  secure  to  this 
Concord  School  of  Philosophy  a  long  remembrance 
will  be  the  mention  of  it  in  Emerson's  biography. 
When  we  are  dead,  men  will  read  there,  that  in  the 
evening  of  his  life  he  was  interested  in  these  meet 
ings  and  read  lectures  in  them ;  and  this  mention 
will  secure  that  men  shall  ask  of  them,  to  a  day  when 
else  all  questions  had  long  ceased.  It  is  proper,  then, 
and  worthy  that  we  should  give  his  thought  that 
large  measure  of  attention  and  of  prominence  which 
we  do  give  it  here  and  now.  It  is  well  that  we 
American  students  of  philosophy  should  seek  to 
learn  and  to  teach  the  doctrine  of  this  greatest  mas 
ter  of  ours,  and  greatest  —  perhaps  the  only  great  — 
American  philosopher.  For,  much  more  than  phi 
losopher,  —  so  much  more  that  the  philosopher  is  but 
one  simple  element  in  the  harmonious  man,  in  no 
wise  monopolizing  or  tyrannizing  over  temperament 
and  powers,  —  yet  is  Emerson  truly  one  of  the  great 
est  philosophers  of  all  time,  and  has  given  the  deepest 


234       THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

answers  in  his  time  to  the  soul's  Whence  ?  and 
What  ?  and  Whither  ?  /  So  harmonious  and  synthetic 
is  he,  so  interfused  is  Vhis  philosophy  with  life  and 
poetry  and  beauty  and  counsel,  ihat  it  is  not  a  wholly 
grateful  task  to  discuss  hinr  in  that  analytic  and 
departmental  manner  which  our  programme  imposes. 
Yet  if  by  such  discussion,  by  any  stimulation  of  curi 
osity  through  the  showing  of  Emerson's  relation  to 
those  problems  which  everlastingly  vex  most  men's 
minds,  a  more  careful  study  of  his  own  life-giving 
page  is  provoked  in  any,  the  price  is  surely  not  too 
high. 

So  much  being  said,  it  is  with  exceptional  pleasure 
that  I  invite  the  attention  of  this  serious  company  to 
the  subject  which  has  been  given  me,  of  Emerson's 
ethics.  Eor  I  have  been  thinking  long  that  in  this 
time,  when  philosophic  men  are  working  more  inge 
niously  and  energetically  to  properly  ground  a  sys 
tem  of  morals  than  to  do  anything  else  in  philosophy, 
the  hint  —  and  much  more  than  the  hint,  the  clear 
indication  —  of  the  direction  which  the  next  real  and 
great  advance  in  ethical  theory  must  take  is  given  us 
by  Emerson.  /  T  believe  that,  just  as  Emerson  has  best 
given  the  insight  which  harmonizes  idealism  and  the 
modern  doctrine  of  evolution,  —  which  shows  indeed 
that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  gets  its  adequate  and 
rational  ground  only  in  a  spiritual  philosophy, — J 
so  he  has  made  an  ethical  statement  possible,  large 
enough  to  take  in  both  Kant  and  Spencer ;  and  this 
in  no  mere  eclectic  fashion,  but  in  the  genuinely 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  235 

synthetic  way  of  enriching  and  illuminating  and 
explaining  both,  in  a  truth  which  is  deeper  and 
larger  than  theirs. 

It  has  been  impossible  for  me,  in  the  brief  time 
which  is  all  that  I  have  been  able  to  give  to  the 
preparation  of  this  essay,  to  do  much  more  than  pre 
sent  in  some  sort  of  systematic  way  such  words  of 
Emerson's  own  as  best  indicate  and  illustrate  his 
great  truth.  Yet  perhaps,  after  all,  no  one  could  do 
better  than  this;  and  I  hope  at  least  to  make  the 
conception  clear  and  influential 

This  truth  is,  that  morality  is  the  law  of  the  uni 
verse  as  it  is  operative  and  consciously  adopted  in 
the  soul  of  man,  just  as  gravitation  and  the  chemic 
forces  are  the  same  law  of  the  universe  operating 
otherwise. 

I  might  repeat  a  score  of  passages  in  which  this 
truth  finds  notable  expression,  to  set  as  a  sort  of  text 
before  what  I  would  say.  I  will  here  set  two  such 
passages,  —  passages  which  will  be  the  better  remem 
bered  because  of  the  significant  occasions  of  their 
utterance.  The  first  is  the  closing  words  of  the 
famous  Harvard  Address  of  1838,  an  address  which, 
as  a  whole,  it  is  perhaps  not  unfair  to  pronounce  the 
first  free  and  full  utterance  of  rational  religion  in 
America:  — 

"  I  look  for  the  new  teacher  that  shall  follow  so  far 
those  shining  laws  that  he  shall  see  them  come  full  circle ; 
shall  see  their  rounding,  complete  grace ;  shall  see  the 
world  to  be  the  mirror  of  the  soul ;  shall  see  the  identity 


236  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

of  the  law  of  gravitation  with  purity  of  heart ;  and  shall 
show  that  the  Ought,  that  Duty,  is  one  thing  with 
Science,  with  Beauty,  and  with  Joy." 

The  other  passage  is  from  the  address  before  the 
Tree  Religious  Association,  in  1869  :  — 

"  I  am  ready  to  give,  as  often  before,  the  first  simple 
foundation  of  my  belief :  that  the  Author  of  Nature  has 
not  left  himself  without  a  witness  in  any  sane  mind ;  that 
the  moral  sentiment  speaks  to  every  man  the  law  after 
which  the  universe  was  made ;  that  we  find  parity,  iden 
tity  of  design,  through  Nature,  and  benefit  to  be  the  uni 
form  aim ;  that  there  is  a  force  always  at  work  to  make 
the  best  better  and  the  worst  good." 

"  The  identity  of  the  law  of  gravitation  with  purity 
of  heart. "£)"  The  moral  sentiment  speaks  to  every\ 
man  the  law  after  which  the  universe  was  made// 
Those  are  especially  the  texts  which  I  would  have 
remembered.  It  is  one  idea  which  speaks  through 
both.  Indeed,  the  most  notable  thing  about  this 
whole  brief  address  of  1869,  as  still  more  about  the 
address  of  1880,  upon  "The  Preacher,"  —  Emerson's 
last  great  religious  utterance,  —  is  the  way  in  which 
it  revives  and  reiterates  in  some  form  almost  every 
leading  thought  of  the  Address  of  1838.  But  this 
rare  consistency  and  persistency  is  the  ever  notable 
thing  in  Emerson.  It  is  the  superficial  man  that  finds 
and  talks  of  inconsistencies  in  Emerson.  Never  wasN 
so  deep  a  thinker  so  mature  at  thirty  ;  and  "  Nature," 
his  earliest  essay,  might  still  pass  for  the  best,  and  a 
sufficient,  summary  of  his  philosophy. 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  237 

I  have  chosen  these  two  texts  for  a  study  of  Emer 
son's  ethics,  not  more  because  they  were  spoken  on 
memorable  occasions,  than  because  those  memorable 
occasions  were  religious  occasions.  The  ethics  of 
Emerson  can  never  be  dissociated  from  the  religion 

O 

of  Emerson.  The  study  of  the  one  involves  reference 
to  the  other.  "  How  can  we  speak  of  the  action  of 
the  mind  under  any  divisions,"  he  asks  once  himself, 
"  as  of  its  knowledge,  of  its  ethics,  of  its  works,  and 
so  forth,  since  it  melts  will  into  perception,  knowl 
edge  into  act  ?  Each  becomes  the  other."  Truest  of 
all  in  Emerson's  case  is  this  melting  of  ethics  and 
religion.  Ethics  ever  becomes  religion  with  him, 
and  religion  becomes  ethics,  in  ways  which  we  shall 
consider. 

A  few  words  concerning  Emerson's  religious  thought 
are  convenient  and  necessary  at  the  very  outset  of  this 
study  of  his  ethics.  And  perhaps  much  ground  can 
be  cleared  in  no  other  way  so  quickly  as  by  a  brief 
statement  of  his  attitude  toward  the  popular  religion, 
the  creed  of  the  Church.  Of  all  the  great  religious 
thinkers  of  America,  and  almost  of  our  time  altogether, 
Emerson  has  been  perhaps  the  most  impatient  of  the 
Church  and  its  doctrinal  statements.  Of  this,  this 
audience  does  not  need  to  be  reminded.  But  the 
matter  of  interest  to  us  is  the  manner  and  purpose 
of  his  expressions  of  impatience,  and  the  doctrine 
which  inspires  his  criticism.  He  said :  — 

"  We  are  all  very  sensible,  it  is  forced  on  us  every  day, 
that  churches  are  outgrown  j  that  the  creeds  are  outgrown. 


,238  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

.  .  .  The  Church  is  not  large  enough  for  the  man ;  it 
cannot  inspire  the  enthusiasm  which  is  the  parent  of 
everything  good  in  history.  .  .  .  For  that  enthusiasm 
you  must  have  something  greater  than  yourselves,  and  not 
less.  .  .  .  But  in  churches  every  healthful  and  thought 
ful  mind  finds  itself  in  something  less;  it  is  checked, 
cribbed,  confined." 

"  The  Jewish  cultus  is  declining ;  the  Divine,  or,  as  some 
will  say,  the  truly  Human,  hovers,  now  seen,  now  unseen, 
before  us." 

"  Swedenborg  and  Behmen  both  failed  by  attaching 
themselves  to  the  Christian  symbol  instead  of  to  the 
moral  sentiment,  which  carries  innumerable  Christianities, 
.humanities,  divinities,  in  its  bosom.  What  have  I  to 
do  with  arks  and  passovers,  ephahs  and  ephods ;  what  with 
heave-offerings  and  unleavened  bread,  chariots  of  fire, 
dragons  crowned  and  horned,  behemoth  and  unicorn? 
Good  for  Orientals,  these  are  nothing  to  me.  The  more 
learning  you  bring  to  explain  them,  the  more  glaring  the 
impertinence.  Of  all  absurdities,  this  of  some  foreigner 
proposing  to  take  away  my  rhetoric  and  substitute  his 
own,  and  amuse  me  with  pelican  and  stork  instead  of 
thrush  and  robin,  palm-trees  and  shittim-wood  instead  of 
sassafras  and  hickory,  seems  the  most  useless." 

"If  a  man  claims  to  know  and  speak  of  God,  and 
carries  you  backward  to  the  phraseology  of  some  old 
mouldered  nation  in  another  country,  in  another  world, 
believe  him  not." 

The  animating  feeling  here  is  that  no  time  or  place 
was  ever  sacreder  than  ours,  that  God  is  in  all  his 
tory  alike,  and  that  we  too  sustain  original  relations 


E PERSON'S  ETHICS.  239 

with  God.     It  is  the   same   spirit  as  that   of  the 
opening  lines  of  "  Nature  : "  — 

"  The  foregoing  generations  heheld  God  and  Nature 
face  to  face;  we  through  their  eyes.  Why  should  not 
we  also  enjoy  an  original  relation  to  the  universe?  Why 
should  not  we  have  a  poetry  and  philosophy  of  insight, 
and  not  of  tradition ;  and  a  religion  hy  revelation  to  us, 
and  not  the  history  of  theirs  1  .  .  .  The  sun  shines  to-day 
also.  There  is  more  wool  and  flax  in  the  fields." 

"  An  original  relation  to  the  universe/'  —  that  word 
describes  the  spirit ;  and  it  is  in  the  enforcement  of 
this  that  he  comes  into  collision  with  the  Church 
upon  its  three  doctrines  of  Miracle,  the  Bible,  and 
Christ.  His  demand  throughout  is  for  an  original 
relation  and  a  uniform  and  universal  law. 

"  The  word  Miracle,  as  pronounced  by  Christian 
churches,  gives  a  false  impression ;  it  is  Monster.  It 
is  not  one  with  the  blowing  clover  and  the  falling 
rain." 

"  I  object,  of  course,  to  the  claim  of  miraculous  dispen 
sation,  —  certainly  not  to  the  doctrine  of  Christianity. 
This  claim  impairs,  to  my  mind,  the  soundness  of  him 
who  makes  it,  and  indisposes  us  to  his  communion.  .  .  . 
It  is  contrary  to  that  law  of  Nature  which  all  wise  men 
recognize ;  namely,  never  to  require  a  larger  cause  than  is 
necessary  to  the  effect." 

"  The  word  miracle,  as  it  is  used,  only  indicates  the 
ignorance  of  the  devotee,  staring  with  wonder  to  see  water 
turned  into  wine,  and  heedless  of  the  stupendous  fact  of 
his  own  personality.  Here  he  stands,  a  lonely  thought 


240  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

harmoniously  organized  into  correspondence  with  the  uni 
verse  of  mind  and  matter.  What  narrative  of  wonders 
coming  down  from  a  thousand  years  ought  to  charm  his 
attention  like  this?  ...  It  seems  as  if,  when  the  spirit 
of  God  speaks  so  plainly  to  each  soul,  it  were  an  impiety 
to  be  listening  to  one  or  another  saint.  Jesus  was  better 
than  others,  because  he  refused  to  listen  to  others  and 
listened  at  home." 

"It  is  so  wonderful  to  our  neurologists  that  a  man  can 
see  without  his  eyes,  that  it  does  not  occur  to  them  that 
it  is  just  as  wonderful  that  he  should  see  with  them ;  and 
that  is  ever  the  difference  between  the  wise  and  the  un 
wise  :  the  latter  wonders  at  what  is  unusual,  the  wise  man 
wonders  at  the  usual," 

"  Far  be  from  me  the  impatience  which  cannot  brook 
the  supernatural,  the  vast  ;  far  be  from  me  the  lust  of  ex 
plaining  away  all  which  appeals  to  the  imagination,  and 
the  great  presentiments  which  haunt  us.  Willingly  I  too 
say,  Hail !  to  the  unknown  awful  powers  which  transcend 
the  ken  of  the  understanding." 

"  It  is  not  the  incredibility  of  the  fact,"  he  says  of 
various  alleged  marvels,  "but  a  certain  want  of  harmony 
between  the  action  and  the  agent.  We  are  used  to  vaster 
wonders.  One  moment  of  a  man's  life  is  a  fact  so  stupen 
dous  as  to  take  the  lustre  out  of  all  fiction.  But  Nature 
never  works  like  a  conjurer.  .  .  .  The  soul  penetrated 
with  the  beatitude  which  pours  into  it  on  all  sides,  asks 
no  interpositions,  no  new  laws,  —  the  old  are  good  enough 
for  it,  —  finds  in  every  cart-path  of  labor  ways  to  heaven, 
and  the  humblest  lot  exalted." 

"  We  want  all  the  aids  to  our  moral  training.  We  can 
not  spare  the  vision  nor  the  virtue  of  the  saints ;  but  let 


EMERSO^S  ETHICS.  241 

it  be  by  pure  sympathy,  not  with  any  personal  or  official 
claim.  If  you  are  childish,  and  exhibit  your  saint  as  a 
worker  of  wonders,  a  thaumaturgist,  I  am  repelled.  That 
claim  takes  his  teachings  out  of  logic  and  out  of  Nature, 
and  permits  official  and  arbitrary  senses  to  be  grafted  on 
the  teachings.  It  is  the  praise  of  our  Xew  Testament 
that  its  teachings  go  to  the  honor  and  benefit  of  humanity, 
—  that  no  better  lesson  has  been  taught  or  incarnated. 
Let  it  stand,  beautiful  and  wholesome,  with  whatever  is 
most  like  it  in  the  teaching  and  practice  of  men ;  but  do 
not  attempt  to  elevate  it  out  of  humanity  by  saying,  '  This 
was  not  a  man,'  for  then  you  confound  it  with  the  fables 
of  every  popular  religion,  and  my  distrust  of  the  story 
makes  me  distrust  the  doctrine  as  soon  as  it  differs  from 
my  own  belief." 

He  sees  how  much  the  New  Testament  loses  in 
the  charm  of  suggestion,  of  poetry  and  truth,  by  its 
connection  with  a  church,  and  by  the  official  place  in 
which  it  is  put :  — 

"  Mankind  cannot  long  suffer  this  loss,  and  the  office  of 
this  age  is  to  put  all  these  writings  on  the  eternal  footing 
of  equality  of  origin  in  the  instincts  of  the  human  mind. 
It  is  certain  that  each  inspired  master  will  gain  instantly 
by  the  separation  from  the  idolatry  of  ages." 

"  Men  have  come  to  speak  of  the  revelation  as  some 
what  long  ago  given  and  done,  as  if  God  were  dead." 

"  It  is  the  office  of  a  true  teacher  to  show  us  that  God 
is,  not  was  ;  that  he  speaketh,  not  spake." 

"  With  each  new  mind,  a  new  secret  of  Xature  trans 
pires  ;  nor  can  the  Bible  be  closed  until  the  last  great  man 
is  born." 

13 


242  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  The  world  is  young  :  the  former  great  men  call  to  ns 
affectionately.  We  too  must  write  bibles,  to  unite  again 
the  heavens  and  the  earthly  world." 

There  is,  you  perceive,  no  trouble  with  the  doctrine 
of  inspiration,  but  rather  a  larger  assertion  of  inspira 
tion,  —  trouble  only  with  the  doctrine  which  limits 
inspiration.  He  cannot  allow  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  exhausted  by  one  effort  or  a  dozen  ;  it  still  and 
forever  hovers  over  elect  men  with  informations  as 
surprising  and  commanding  as  those  which  came 
through  Moses  or  Elias  or  Paul.  There  is  no  trouble 
with  the  supernatural,  —  trouble  only  with  the  pro 
vincial-supernatural,  with  the  doctrine  of  the  limita 
tion  or  insulation  of  the  divine  energy.  He  asserts 
the  natural-supernatural ;  "  in  the  universal  miracle 
petty  and  particular  miracles  disappear."  "  The  cure 
for  false  theology,"  he  said,  "  is  mother- wit.  The 
scepticism  which  men  say  devastates  the  community 
cannot  be  cured  or  stayed  by  any  modification  of 
theologic  creeds,  much  less  by  theologic  discipline." 
"  Forget  your  books  and  traditions,  and  obey  your 
moral  perceptions  at  this  hour." 

More  strikingly  than  in  his  discussion  of  the 
Church's  general  doctrine  of  miracle  and  its  doc 
trine  of  inspiration,  does  this  conception  of  Emerson 
appear  in  his  opposition  to  the  Church's  doctrine  of 
Christ.  I  think  that  no  man  in  late  times,  unless 
perhaps  Fi elite  in  Germany,  has  paid  such  notable, 
discriminating,  and  illuminating  tribute  to  the  mind 
of  Christ  as  Emerson.  "  Until  I  read  Emerson,"  said 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  243 

one  of  our  ablest  Congregational  ministers  to  me,  "  I 
did  not  know  the  mind  of  Christ."  But  this  tribute 
is  always  to  Christ's  pre-eminent  possession  of  those 
qualities  which  constitute  the  glory  of  the  human 
mind  as  such,  and  draws  back  at  each  suggestion  of 
peculiarity  and  miracle  :  — 

"  The  excellence  of  Jesus,  and  of  every  true  teacher,  is, 
that  he  affirms  the  Divinity  in  him  and  in  us,  —  not 
thrusts  himself  between  it  and  us.  It  would  instantly 
indispose  us  to  any  person  claiming  to  speak  for  the 
Author  of  Nature,  the  setting  forth  any  fact  or  law  which 
we  did  not  find  in  our  consciousness." 

"Jesus  has  immense  claims  on  the  gratitude  of  man 
kind,  and  knew  how  to  guard  the  integrity  of  his  brother's 
soul  from  himself  also  ;  but,  in  his  disciples,  admiration 
of  him  runs  away  with  their  reverence  for  the  human  soul, 
and  they  hamper  us  with  limitations  of  person  and  text. 
Every  exaggeration  of  these  is  a  violation  of  the  soul's 
right,  and  inclines  the  manly  reader  to  lay  down  the  New 
Testament,  to  take  up  the  Pagan  philosophers." 

"  The  language  that  describes  Christ  to  Europe  and 
America  is  not  the  style  of  friendship  and  enthusiasm  to  a 
great  and  noble  heart,  but  is  appropriated  and  formal,  — 
paints  a  demigod,  as  the  Orientals  or  the  Greeks  would 
describe  Osiris  or  Apollo." 

"  The  Christian  Church  has  dwelt  —  it  dwells  —  with 
noxious  exaggeration  about  the  person  of  Jesus.  The  soul 
knows  no  persons.  It  invites  every  man  to  expand  to 
the  full  circle  of  the  universe." 

"  JT  is  presumed  there  is  but  one  Shakspeare,  one  Homer, 
one  Jesus,  —  not  that  all  are  or  shall  be  inspired.  But 


244  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

we  must  begin  by  affirming.  Truth  and  goodness  sub 
sist  forevermore.  .  .  .  No  historical  person  begins  to  con 
tent  us." 

"  Jesus  astonishes  and  overpowers  sensual  people.  They 
cannot  unite  him  to  history,  or  reconcile  him  with  them 
selves.  As  they  come  to  revere  their  intuitions  and  aspire 
to  live  holily,  their  own  piety  explains  every  fact,  every 
word." 

"  There  are  humble  souls  who  think  it  the  highest  wor 
ship  to  expect  of  Heaven  the  most  and  the  best ;  who  do 
not  wonder  that  there  was  a  Christ,  but  that  there  were 
not  a  thousand ;  who  have  conceived  an  infinite  hope  for 
mankind ;  who  believe  that  the  history  of  Jesus  is  the 
history  of  every  man,  written  large." 

"Let  a  man  believe  in  God,  and  not  in  names  and 
places  and  persons.  .  .  .  Dare  to  love  God  without  medi 
ator  or  veil.  Thank  God  for  these  good  men,  but  say,  I 
also  am  a  man." 

And  particularly,  in  this  connection,  will  be  re 
membered  the  famous  passage  in  the  Divinity  School 
Address :  — 

"  Jesus  Christ  belonged  to  the  true  race  of  prophets. 
He  saw  with  open  eye  the  mystery  of  the  soul.  Drawn 
by  its  severe  harmony,  ravished  with  its  beauty,  he  lived 
in  it,  and  had  his  being  there.  Alone  in  all  history  he 
estimated  the  greatness  of  man.  One  man  was  true  to 
what  is  in  you  and  me.  He  saw  that  God  incarnates  him 
self  in  man,  and  evermore  goes  forth  anew  to  take  posses 
sion  of  his  World.  He  said,  in  this  jubilee  of  sublime 
emotion,  '  I  am  divine.  Through  me,  God  acts ;  through 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  245 

me,  speaks.     "Would  you  see  God,  see  me ;  or  see  thee, 
when  thou  also  tliinkest  as  I  now  think.'  " 

Having  thus  considered  Emerson's  assertion  of  the 
universal-supernatural,  the  perennial  inspiration,  and 
the  common  divine  sonship,  through  his  negation 
of  the  Church's  doctrines  of  historical  miracle,  of  a 
Bible  with  covers,  and  of  an  "  only-begotten "  son, 
we  are  prepared  to  understand  better  the  aim  and 
scope  and  spirit  of  his  positive  expositions  of  religion, 
and  to  see  how  his  religious  conception  is  the  very 
foundation  of,  or  rather  almost  one  with,  his  moral 
conviction  and  philosophy. 

Two  well-known  passages  upon  the  Church  and 
the  worship  of  the  future  will  serve  us  as  a  good 
starting-point  for  this  part  of  our  study.  The  first, 
as  will  be  recognized,  is  from  that  inspired  last  page 
of  the  essay  on  "Worship,"  published  in  1860  :  — 

"There  will  he  a  new  church  founded  on  moral  science ; 
at  first  cold  and  naked,  a  babe  in  a  manger  again,  the 
algebra  and  mathematics  of  ethical  law,  the  church  of  men 
to  come,  without  shawms,  or  psaltery,  or  sackbut ;  but  it 
will  have  heaven  and  earth  for  its  beams  and  rafters  ;  sci 
ence  for  symbol  and  illustration ;  it  will  fast  enough  gather 
beauty,  music,  picture,  poetry." 

The  other  passage  is  from  "  The  Preacher,"  pub 
lished  in  1880:- 

"  We  are  in  transition,  from  the  worship  of  the  fathers, 
which  enshrined  the  law  in  a  private  and  personal  history, 
to  a  worship  which  recognizes  the  true  eternity  of  the  law, 


246  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

its  presence  to  you  and  me,  its  equal  energy  in  what  is 
called  brute  nature  as  in  what  is  called  sacred  history. 
The  next  age  will  behold  God  in  the  ethical  laws,  —  as 
mankind  begins  to  see  them  in  this  age,  —  self-equal,  self- 
executing,  instantaneous,  and  self-affirmed ;  needing  no 
voucher,  no  prophet,  and  no  miracle  besides  their  own 
irresistibility,  —  and  will  regard  natural  history,  private  for 
tunes,  and  politics,  not  for  themselves,  as  we  have  done,  but 
as  illustrations  of  those  laws,  of  that  beatitude  and  love." 

The  new  church  will  be  "founded  on  moral  sci 
ence."  "  The  next  age  will  behold  God  in  the  ethical 
laws."  It  is,  you  perceive,  one  thought  which  speaks 
in  both  places.  "  In  transition  from  a  worship  which 
enshrined  the  law  in  a  private  and  personal  history, 
to  a  worship  which  recognizes  the  true  eternity  of 
the  law,  its  presence  to  you  and  to  me."  The  law 
which  the  old  worships  have  thus  enshrined  in  a 
private  and  personal  history  is  the  moral  law.  To 
Emerson,  as  to  Kant  and  to  Carlyle,  the  purpose 
and  the  essence  of  religion  is  the  moral  life,  and  the 
significance  and  value  of  all  saints  and  cults  is  in 
their  illustration  and  enforcement  of  this.1  "  Hast 

1  This  principle,  thus  generally  stated,  would  not  of  course  be 
denied  by  the  really  thoughtful  and  philosophic  minds  among  those 
who  attach  a  greater  significance  and  value  to  the  "personal  his 
tory"  and  the  cult  than  Emerson  does.  The  principle,  indeed, 
could  scarcely  be  better  asserted  than  in  these  words  of  Bishop 
Huntington  :  "The  end  of  Christianity,  the  object  of  Revelation, 
the  ideal  of  the  Church,  is  personal  character.  Systems,  theologies, 
creeds,  sacraments,  liturgies,  missions,  —  all  are  for  this  ;  unless  this 
is  produced  somewhere,  they  fail.  This  making  of  character  is  our 
first  concern." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  247 

them  reflected,  0  serious  reader,  Advanced-Liberal  or 
other,"  asks  Carlyle,  in  "  Past  and  Present,"  "  that 
the  one  end,  essence,  use,  of  all  religion,  past,  pres 
ent,  and  to  come,  was  this  only :  To  keep  that  same 
Moral  Conscience  or  Inner  Light  of  ours  alive  and 
shining  ;  —  which  certainly  the  '  Phantasms '  and  the 
'  turbid  media '  were  not  essential  for  ?  All  religion 
was  here  to  remind  us,  better  or  worse,  of  the  quite 
infinite  difference  there  is  between  a  Good  man  and 
a  Bad ;  to  bid  us  love  infinitely  the  one,  abhor  and 
avoid  infinitely  the  other,  —  strive  infinitely  to  be 
the  one,  and  not  to  be  the  other." 

Emerson  is  full  of  passages  urging  this  view.  "  The 
essence  of  Christianity,"  he  said,  in  his  eulogy  of 
Parker,  "  is  its  practical  morals.  It  is  there  for  use, 
or  it  is  nothing."  "  I  consider  theology,"  he  says,  — 
using  theology,  of  course,  in  the  popular,  not  in  the 
philosophical,  sense,  —  "  to  be  the  rhetoric  of  morals. 
The  mind  of  this  age  has  fallen  away  from  theology 
to  morals.  I  conceive  it  an  advance." 

"  I  think  that  all  the  dogmas  rest  on  morals,  and  that 
it  is  only  a  question  of  youth  or  maturity,  of  more  or  less 
fancy  in  the  recipient ;  that  the  stern  determination  to  do 
justly,  to  speak  the  truth,  to  be  chaste  and  humble,  was  sub 
stantially  the  same,  whether  under  a  self-respect,  or  under 
a  vow  made  on  the  knees  at  the  shrine  of  Madonna." 

"  The  creed,  the  legend,  forms  of  worship,  swiftly  de 
cay.  Morals  is  the  incorruptible  essence,  very  heedless  in 
its  richness  of  any  past  teacher  or  witness,  —  heedless  of- 
their  lives  and  fortunes.  It  does  not  ask  whether  you  are 


248  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

wrong  or  right  in  your  anecdotes  of  them  ;  but  it  is  all  in 
all  how  you  stand  to  your  own  tribunal." 

"  The  infant  soul  must  learn  to  walk  alone.  At  first 
he  is  forlorn,  homeless  ;  but  this  rude  stripping  him  of  all 
support  drives  him  inward,  and  he  finds  himself  unhurt ; 
he  finds  himself  face  to  face  with  the  majestic  Presence, 
reads  the  original  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  original 
of  Gospels  and  Epistles  ;  nay,  his  narrow  chapel  expands 
to  the  blue  cathedral  of  the  sky." 

"  The  popular  religion  echoes  an  original  conscience  in 
men.  The  commanding  fact  which  I  never  do  not  see,  is 
the  sufficiency  of  the  moral  sentiment.  We  buttress  it  up, 
in  shallow  hours  or  ages,  with  legends,  traditions,  and  forms, 
each  good  for  the  one  moment  in  which  it  was  a  happy  type 
or  symbol  of  the  Power ;  but  the  Power  sends  in  the  next 
moment  a  new  lesson,  which  we  lose  while  our  eyes  are 
reverted  and  striving  to  perpetuate  the  old." 

"  The  decline  of  the  influence  of  Calvin,  or  Fenelon,  or 
Wesley,  or  Channing,  need  give  us  no  uneasiness.  The 
builder  of  heaven  has  not  so  ill  constructed  his  creature 
as  that  the  religion  —  that  is,  the  public  nature  —  should 
fall  out.  The  public  and  the  private  element,  like  north 
and  south,  like  inside  and  outside,  like  centrifugal  and 
centripetal,  adhere  to  every  soul,  and  cannot  be  subdued 
except  the  soul  is  dissipated.  God  builds  his  temple  in 
the  heart,  on  the  ruins  of  churches  and  religions." 

"  The  life  of  those  once  omnipotent  traditions  was  really 
not  in  the  legend,  but  in  the  moral  sentiment  and  the 
metaphysical  fact  which  the  legends  enclosed ;  and  these 
survive.  A  new  Socrates,  or  Zeno,  or  Swedenborg,  or 
Pascal,  or  a  new  crop  of  geniuses  like  those  of  the  Eliza 
bethan  age,  may  be  born  in  this  age,  and,  with  happy 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  249 

heart  and  a  bias  for  theism,  bring  asceticism,  duty,  and 
magnanimity  into  vogue  again." 

"  Men  will  learn  to  put  back  the  emphasis  perempto 
rily  on  pure  morals,  always  the  same,  not  subject  to  doubt 
ful  interpretation  ;  ...  to  make  morals  the  absolute  test, 
and  so  uncover  and  drive  out  the  false  religions." 

"  "\Ve  are  thrown  back  on  rectitude  forever  and  ever, 
only  rectitude, — to  mend  one ;  that  is  all  we  can  do.  But 
that  the  zealot  stigmatizes  as  a  sterile  chimney-corner  phi 
losophy.  Xow,  the  first  position  I  make  is,  that  natural 
religion  supplies  still  all  the  facts  which  are  disguised  un 
der  the  dogma  of  popular  creeds.  The  progress  of  religion 
is  steadily  to  its  identity  with  morals." 

"  It  accuses  us  that  pure  ethics  is  not  now  formulated 
and  concreted  into  a  cultus,  —  a  fraternity  with  assem 
blings  aud  holy-days,  with  song  and  book,  with  brick  and 
stone." 

"  Ethics  are  thought  not  to  satisfy  affection.  But  all 
the  religion  we  have  is  the  ethics  of  one  or  another  holy 
person.  As  soon  as  character  appears,  be  sure  love  will, 
and  veneration,  and  anecdotes,  and  fables  about  him,  and 
delight  of  good  men  and  women  in  him." 

"  Whenever  the  sublimities  of  character  shall  be  incar 
nated  in  a  man,  we  may  rely  that  awe  and  love  and  in 
satiable  curiosity  will  follow  his  steps." 

"  Is  it  quite  impossible  to  believe  that  men  should  be 
drawn  to  each  other  by  the  simple  respect  which  each 
man  feels  for  another  in  whom  he  discovers  absolute  hon 
esty  ;  the  respect  he  feels  for  one  who  thinks  life  is  quite 
too  coarse  and  frivolous,  and  that  he  should  like  to  lift 
it  a  little,  should  like  to  be  the  friend  of  some  man's 
virtue  1  for  another  who,  underneath  his  compliances  with 


250  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

artificial  society,  would  dearly  like  to  serve  somebody,  to 
test  his  own  reality  by  making  himself  useful  and  indis 
pensable  1 " 

"  America  shall  introduce  a  new  religion,"  he  ex 
claimed  ;  and  the  new  religion  which  he  thus  fore 
saw  and  prophesied  was  this  religion  of  ethics. 
Already  it  seemed  to  him  the  religious  feeling  was 
preparing  to  rise  out  of  its  old  forms  "  to  an  absolute 
justice  and  healthy  perception,"  infusing  "  a  new 
feeling  of  humanity  into  public  actions." 

It  will  not  fail  to  occur  to  some  here,  that  this 
whole  view  of  ethical  religion  is  strikingly  approxi 
mated  by  the  programme  of  the  Societies  for  Ethical 
Culture,  whose  rise  in  various  of  our  cities,  starting 
with  the  work  of  Professor  Adler  in  New  York,  is 
certainly  one  of  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  a  matter 
which  seems  to  me  deserving  of  the  serious  atten 
tion  of  religious  men.  And  it  is  especially  notable 
that  Mr.  Salter,  the  most  speculative  mind,  perhaps, 
that  is  actively  interested  in  this  movement,  re 
marked,  in  a  recent  address  upon  the  philosophical 
basis  of  the  movement,  "I  know  not  what  true 
thought  of  mine  you  may  not  find,  stripped  of  its 
imperfections  of  statement,  in  Emerson."  In  truth, 
I  do  believe  that  this  movement,  and  all  such,  are 
notable  approximations  to  the  view  of  Emerson,  and 
mark  the  effort  of  humanity  to  fulfil  his  prophecy. 
Wherein  Mr.  Salter's  own  expressed  philosophy  falls 
short  of  Emerson,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of  truth, 
appears  as  well  by  testing  it  by  our  two  passages  in 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  251 

"  Worship  "  and  "  The  Preaclier  "  as  otherwise.  "  A 
new  church  will  be  founded  on  ethical  law,"  said 
Emerson  in  "  Worship  ;  "  but  he  added,  "  The  Laws 
are  alive  ;  they  know  if  we  have  obeyed."  "  The  next 
age  will  behold  God  in  the  ethical  laws,"  he  said  in 
"  The  Preacher;"  but  mark  deeply,  —  not  simply  be 
hold  the  ethical  laws,  but  behold  God  in  the  ethi 
cal  laws.  The  points  here  involved  are  essentially 
the  same  as  those  involved  in  the  ethical  and  reli 
gious  thought  of  Fichte  during  his  Jena  period,  with 
which  most  of  those  here  are  doubtless  familiar.  The 
evolution  of  Fichte' s  own  thought  from  the  concep 
tion  of  God  as  the  moral  law  of  the  universe,  to  the 
conception  of  God  as  real  ground,  is  worthy  every 
student's  careful  study. 

'^"Xjrod  in  the  ethical  laws."  "  The  good  laws  are 
/  alive.'''  "  The  notion  of  virtue,"  Emerson  says  in  the 
essay  on  Plato,  "is  not  to  be  arrived  at  except  through 
direct  contemplation  of  the  divine  essence."  "  I  am 
far  from  accepting  the  sentiment,"  he  says  elsewhere, 
"  that  the  revelations  of  the  moral  sentiment  are  in 
sufficient,  as  if  it  furnished  a  rule  only,  and  not  the 
spirit  by  which  the  rule  is  animated.  .  .  .  The  sen 
timent  itself  teaches  unity  of  source."  "  Men  talk 
of  '  mere  morality,'  which  is  much  as  if  one  should 
say,  '  Poor  God,  with  nobody  to  help  him  ! '  I  find 
the  omnipresence  and  the  alinightiness  in  the  reac 
tion  of  every  atom  in  Xature.  .  .  .  Let  us  replace 
sentimentalism  by  realism,  and  dare  to  uncover  those 
simple  and  terrible  laws." 


252  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  the  particular  considera 
tion  ofwhat  morality  is,  in  the  philosophy  of  Emer 
son.  / 1  denned  his  view,  at  the  beginning,  as  this : 
that  morality  is  the  law  of  the  universe  as  it  is 
operative  and  consciously  adopted  in  the  soul  of  man, 
just  as  gravitation  and  the  chemic  forces  are  the 
same  law  of  the  universe  operating  otherwise^]  And 
we  will  here  recall  our  two  texts :  "  the  identity  of 
the  law  of  gravitation  with  purity  of  heart ; "  "  the 
moral  sentiment  speaks  to  every  man  the  law  after 
which  the  universe  was  made." 

"  All  power,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  of  one  kind,  —  a 
sharing  of  the  nature  of  the  world." 

"  It  is  a  short  sight  to  limit  our  faith  in  laws  to  those 
of  gravity,  of  chemistry,  of  botany,  and  so  forth.  These 
laws  do  not  stop  when  our  eyes  lose  them,  but  push  the 
same  geometry  and  chemistry  up  into  the  invisible  plane 
of  social  and  rational  life." 

"  It  is  the  same  fact  existing  as  sentiment  and  as  will 
in  mind,  which  works  in  nature  as  irresistible  law,  ex 
erting  influence  over  nations,  intelligent  beings,  or  down 
in  the  kingdoms  of  brute  or  of  chemical  atoms." 

"  I  look  on  those  sentiments  which  make  the  glory  of 
the  human  being,  —  love,  humanity,  faith,  —  as  being  also 
the  intimacy  of  Divinity  in  the  atoms ;  and  that  man 
is  made  of  the  same  atoms  as  the  world  is,  he  shares  the 
same  impressions,  predispositions,  and  destiny.  When  his 
mind  is  illuminated,  when  his  heart  is  kind,  he  throws 
himself  joyfully  into  the  sublime  order,  (#nd  does  with 
knowledge  what  the  stones  do  by  structure.  " 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  253 

It  would  perhaps  be  imposssible  to  find  any  single 
phrase  which  better  defines  Emerson's  view  of  mor 
ality  than  this  last,  —  doing  icitli  knov:icdge  v:hat  the , 
stones  do  ly  structure.  We  exist  to  an  absolutely  de-l 
fined  end ;  and  toward  the  fulfilment  of  that  defini 
tion  the  absolute  law  of  our  being  commands,  as  truly 
as  the  law  of  structure  commands  the  inert  and  pas 
sive  stone.  "  The  weight  of  the  universe/'  says  Em 
erson,  "is  pressed  down  on  the  shoulders  of  each  moral 
agent  to  hold  him  to  his  task.  The  only  path  of  es 
cape  known  in  all  the  worlds  of  God  is  performance." 
But  this  performance,  which  is  necessary,  must,  to 
make  morality,  be  also  voluntary.  Man  is  free.  He 
must  do  with  knowledge,  and  by  choice,  what  the 
stones  do  by  structure,  to  fulfil  his  greater  definition. 
"  The  last  lesson  of  life,"  says  Emerson,  "  the  choral 
song  which  rises  from  all  elements  and  all  angels, 
is  a  voluntary  obedience,  a  necessitated  freedom." 
^/Morality,  then,  is  simply  the  health,  the  obedience, 
Jhe  perfection  of  our  nature.  It  is  the  fulfilment  of 
our  definition,  the  triumph  over  the  negative  ele 
ments  of  tig  soul,  the  law  of  the  universe  reflected 
in  the  higlSet  sphere.  The  moral  law  is  the  law  of 
the  universe.  Says  Emerson  :  — 

"  The  universe  is  alive.  All  things  are  moral.  The 
soul  which  within  us  is  a  sentiment,  outside  of  us  is  a 
law.  In  us  it  is  inspiration  ;  out  there  in  Nature  we  see 
its  fatal  strength."  • 

"  A  breath  of  will  blows  eternally  through  the  universe 
of  souls  in  the  direction  of  the  Right  and  Xecessary.  It  is 


254  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

the  air  which  all  intellects  inhale  and  exhale,  and  it  is  the 
wind  which  blows  the  worlds  into  order  and  orbit." 

"  If  in  sidereal  ages  gravity  and  projection  keep  their 
craft,  and  the  ball  never  loses  its  way  in  its  wild  path 
through  space,  —  a  secreter  gravitation,  a  secreter  projec 
tion,  rule  not  less  tyrannically  in  human  history,  and  keep 
the  balance  of  power  from  age  to  age  .unbroken.  For 
though  the  new  element  of  freedom  and  an  individual  has 
been  admitted,  yet  the  primordial  atoms  are  prefigured 
and  predetermined  to  moral  issues,  are  in  search  of  justice, 
and  ultimate  right  is  done." 

"  The  dice  are  loaded ;  the  colors  are  fast,  because  they 
are  the  native  colors  of  the  fleece ;  the  globe  is  a  battery, 
because  every  atom  is  a  magnet ;  and  the  police  and  sin 
cerity  of  the  universe  are  secured  by  God's  delegating  his 
divinity  to  every  particle." 

"  Morals  are  generated  as  the  atmosphere  is.  'T  is  a 
secret,  the  genesis  of  either ;  but  the  springs  of  justice 
and  courage  do  not  fail  any  more  than  salt  or  sulphur 
springs." 

"  The  constitution  of  the  universe  is  on  the  side  of  the 
man  who  wills  to  do  right.  It  is  of  no  use  to  vote  down 
gravitation  or  morals." 

f     "  Character,"  he  says,  "  is  nature  in  the  highest 

(  form."     Over  and  over,  in  the  essays  of  Emerson,  do 

!  we  come  upon  sharp  and  striking  definitions  of  .cjaa£, 

acter.     I  know  of  nothing  which  he  defines  so  often 

by  a  phrase,  as  character.    And  you  will  observe  that 

the  definition  is  always  a  mere  variation  of  the  phrase 

I  have  quoted,  "character  is  nature  in  the  highest 

form,"  — 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  255 

"  Character  is  the  moral  order  of  the  universe  seen 
through  the  medium  of  an  individual  nature." 

"  Virtue  is  the  adopting  of  the  dictate  of  the  universal 
mind  by  the  individual  mind.  Character  is  the  habit  of 
this  obedience,  and  religion  is  the  accompanying  emotion, 
—  the  emotion  of  reverence,  which  the  presence  of  the 
universal  ever  excites  in  the  individual."  l 

"  Character  is  the  habit  of  action  from  the  permanent 
vision  of  truth." 

"  Character  is  a  will  built  on  the  reason  of  things." 

"  Character  is  a  natural  power,  like  light  and  heat,  and 
all  nature  co-operates  with  it." 

"  The  reason  why  we  feel  one  man's  presence,  and 
do  not  feel  another's,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  as  simple  as 
gravity.  Truth  is  the  summit  of  being ;  justice  is  the 
application  of  it  to  affairs.  All  individual  natures 
stand  in  a  scale,  according  to  the  purity  of  this  ele 
ment  in  them.  .  .  .  This  natural  force  is  no  more  to 
be  withstood  than  any  other  natural  force.  AVe  can 
drive  a  stone  upward  for  a  moment  into  the  air,  but 
it  is  yet  true  that  all  stones  will  forever  fall ;  and 
whatever  instances  can  be  quoted  of  unpunished  theft, 
or  of  a  lie  which  somebody  credited,  justice  must 
prevail,  and  it  is  the  privilege  of  truth  to  make  itself 
believed." 

This  fundamental  idea  in  Emerson's  ethics,  that 
morality  is  simply  the  law  of  the  universe,  recurs  so 

1  In  accord  with  this  definition  of  religion  is  the  following  : 
"  The  perception  of  this  law  of  laws  awakens  in  the  mind  a  senti 
ment  which  we  call  the  religious  sentiment,  and  which  makes  our 
highest  happiness." 


256  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

constantly,  and  in  such  forcible  and  striking  form, 
that  it  is  difficult  to  set  a  limit  to  quotation.  The 
following  passage  from  "  Nature "  is  important  be 
fore  we  leave  this  portion  of  our  subject,  for  the  sake, 
especially,  of  the  philosophical  principle  suggested  at 
its  close  :  — 

"  All  things  are  moral ;  and  in  their  boundless  changes 
have  an  unceasing  reference  to  the  spiritual  nature. 
Therefore  is  Nature  glorious  with  form,  color,  and  mo 
tion,  that  every  globe  in  the  remotest  heaven,  every  chem 
ical  change  from  the  rudest  crystal  up  to  the  laws  .of 
life,  every  change  of  vegetation  from  the  first  principle  of 
growth  in  the  eye  of  a  leaf  to  the  tropical  forest  and  ante 
diluvian  coal-mine,  every  animal  function  from  the  sponge 
up  to  Hercules,  shall  hint  or  thunder  to  man  the  laws 
of  right  and  wrong,  and  echo  the  Ten  Commandments. 
t  Therefore  is  Nature  ever  the  ally  of  Eeligion.  .  .  .  This 
/  ethical  character  so  penetrates  the  bone  and  marrow  of 
Nature,  as  to  seem  the  end  for  which  it  was  made." 

This  last  thought  is  considered  in  detail,  as  will  be 
remembered,  in  the  chapter  on  "  Discipline  ;  "  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  chapter  on  "  Idealism  "  occurs 
the  notable  remark :  "  A  noble  doubt  perpetually  sug 
gests  itself,  whether  this  end  of  discipline  be  not  the 
Final  Cause  of  the  universe,  and  whether  Nature  out 
wardly  exists.  ...  It  is  a  sufficient  account  of  that 
appearance  we  call  the  world,  that  God  will  teach  a 
human  mind,  and  so  makes  it  the  receiver  of  a  cer 
tain  number  of  congruent  sensations,  which  we  call 
sun  and  moon,  man  and  woman,  house  and  trade." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  257 

The  grounds  on  which  he  proceeds  to  reject  the 
extreme  theory  of  Subjective  Idealism  will  be  re 
membered  ;  and  that  theory  is  not  necessary  for  the 
freest  use  of  this  thought  of  the  ethical  and  disci 
plinary  character  of  the  universe.  But  it  is  inter 
esting  and  significant  that  Emerson  is  here  occupied 
with  the  same  conception  which  Fichte  declared  so 
unreservedly  in  his  essay  on  the  "  Ground  of  our 
Faith  in  a  Divine  Government."  The  world,  said 
Fichte,  is  "  nothing  else  than  the  rationally  objecti 
fied  perception  of  our  own  inner  activity,"  "  the  ob 
jectified  material  of  our  duty."  Not  objectified,  of 
course,  in  the  sense  of  being  made  real,  but-  rendered 
sensible,  illustrating,  —  versinnlichte  is  the  German 
word.  "Die  Welt  is  ja  nichts  weiter,  als  die  nach 
Yernunftgesetzen  versinnlichte  Ansicht  unseres  eige- 
neu  innereu  Handelns,"  u  das  versinnlichte  Materiale 
uuserer  Prlicht."  Emerson  says  :  — 

"  Every  natural  process  is  a  version  of  a  moral  sentence. 
The  moral  law  lies  at  the  centre  of  Xature  and  radiates  to 
the  circumference.  .  .  .  All  things  with  which  we  deal 
preach  to  us.  ...  The  moral  sentiment,  which  thus  scents 
the  air,  grows  in  the  grain,  and  impregnates  the  waters  of 
the  world,  is  caught  by  man  and  sinks  into  his  soul.  The 
moral  influence  of  Xature  tipon  every  individual  is  that 
amount  of  truth  which  it  illustrates  to  him.  Who  can 
estimate  this  ?  who  can  guess  how  much  firmness  the 
sea-beaten  rock  has  taught  the  fisherman  1  how  much 
tranquillity  has  been  reflected  to  man  from  the  azure  sky, 
over  whose  unspotted  deeps  the  winds  forevermore  drive 
flocks  of  stormy  clouds,  and  leave  no  wrinkle  or  stain  ? 

17 


258  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

how  much  industry  and  providence  and  affection  we  have 
caught  from  the  pantomime  of  brutes  1 " 

He  says  elsewhere  :  — 

"  A  virtuous  man  is  in  unison  with  the  works  of  Mature, 
and  makes  the  central  figure  of  the  visible  sphere.  Homer, 
Pindar,  Socrates,  Phocian,  associate  themselves  fitly  in  our 
memory  with  the  geography  and  climate  of  Greece.  The 
visible  heavens  and  earth  sympathize  with  Jesus." 

The  words  in  which  Kant,  in  his  "  Kritik  of  Prac 
tical  Reason,"  formulated  the  moral  law  are  famous  : 
"  So  act,  that  the  maxim  of  thy  will  may  always  be 
the  valid  principle  of  a  universal  legislation."  That 
is,  morality  is  the  conformity  of  our  will  to  absolute 
or  universal  law.  Precisely  this  is  the  thought  of  Em 
erson  ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  he  expressly  remem 
bers  Kant  in  more  than  one  statement  of  it. 

"What  is  moral?"  he  asks.  "It  is  the  respecting  in 
action  catholic  or  universal  ends.  Hear  the  definition 
which  Kant  gives  of  moral  conduct :  l  Act  always  so  that 
the  immediate  motive  of  thy  will  may  become  a  universal 
rule  for  all  intelligent  beings.'  " 

Again  :  — 

"Morals  is  the  direction  of  the  will  on  universal  ends. 
He  is  immoral  who  is  acting  to  any  private  end.  He  is 
moral  —  we  say  it  with  Marcus  Aurelius  and  with  Kant 
—  whose  aim  or  motive  may  become  a  universal  rule, 
binding  on  all  intelligent  beings." 

"  On  the  perpetual  conflict  between  the  dictate  of 
this  universal  mind  and  the  wishes  and  interests  of 


ETHICS.  259 

the  individual,"  he  says,  "  the  moral  discipline  of  life 
is  built.  The  one  craves  a  private  benefit,  which  the 
other  requires  him  to  renounce  out  of  respect  to  the 
absolute  good.  .  .  .  He  that  speaks  the  truth  exe 
cutes  no  private  function  of  an  individual  will,  but 
the  world  utters  a  sound  by  his  lips." 

"  A  man  is  a  little  thing  whilst  he  works  by  and  for 
himself;"  but  "when  his  will  leans  on  a  principle,  when 
lie  is  the  vehicle  of  ideas,  he  borrows  their  omnipotence." 

"  The  first  condition  of  success  is  secured  in  putting 
ourselves  right.  We  have  recovered  ourselves  from  our 
false  position,  and  planted  ourselves  on  a  law  of  Xature." 

"  Men  who  make  themselves  felt  in  the  world  avail 
themselves  of  a  certain  fate  in  their  constitution  which 
they  know  how  to  use." 

"  Gibraltar  may  be  strong,  but  ideas  are  impregnable, 
and  bestow  on  the  hero  their  invincibility.  '  It  was  a 
great  instruction/  said  a  saint  in  Cromwell's  war,  'that 
the  best  courages  are  but  beams  of  the  Almighty.' " 

— v  Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star,"  is  the  homely,  pithy 
word  in  which  Emerson  puts  his  doctrine  into  injunc 
tion.  And  perhaps  his  most  adequate  statement  of 
the  doctrine  is  the  following  :  — 

O 

"  The  open  secret  of  the  world  is  the  art  of  subliming 
a  private  soul  with  inspirations  from  the  great  and  public 
and  divine  Soul  from  which  we  live." 

Herein,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  superiority  of  Em 
erson  to  Kant.  With  Kant,  the  moral  life  appears 


260  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

almost  as  a  chronic  crucifixion,  and  we  are  forever 
suspicious  whether  an  act  be  moral  at  all  in  so  far 
as  it  is  a  pleasure.  fVith  Emerson,  the  moral  life  be 
comes  by  and  by,  to  the  healthy  and  obedient  soul, 
a  joy  and  an  inspiration  from  the  great  God.  "  The 
law  was  given  by  Moses/'  says  the  old  Bible  writer, 
"  but  grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ."  And 
so  it  is  here.  There  is  no  disparagement  of  the 
Kantian  Sinai,  but  only  added  glory ;  yet  severity 
itself  appears  as  loveliness,  and  law  is  but  another 
word  for  grace,  obedience  for  joy. 

I  suppose  we  may  say  that  three  ethical  theo 
ries  essentially  cover  what  occupies  the  attention  of 
philosophical  students  to-day,  —  the  three  theories 
sufficiently  indicated  by  the  names  of  Kant  and  Mill 
and  Spencer.  But  the  essay  of  Mill  is  not  concerned 
with  what  is  really  the  urgent  question  with  the 
purely  philosophical  student ;  namely,  What  is  the 
genesis  and  meaning  of  the  idea  of  right?  For, 
somehow  or  other,  as  Emerson  himself  remarks,  the 
idea  of  right  exists  in  the  human  mind.  It  is  a  fixed 
quantity,  —  a,  not  x.  It  is  here.  It  must  be  taken  for 
granted  at  the  outset  of  ethical  inquiry,  as  truly  as 
the  perceptions  of  sense.  The  ethical  question  is  not 
about  the  fact,  but  about  its  explanation  and  impli 
cation.  I  say  that  Mill's  essay  is  not  much  con 
cerned  with  this.  The  general  counsel  that  men 
should  act  unselfishly  for  public  ends  is  estimable ; 
and  it  is  certainly  true  that  if  they  do  not,  society 
will  ultimately  fall,  and  individuals  will  suffer  by 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  261 

it.  But  seventy  years  has  little  to  do  with  what 
will  ultimately  happen  to  society  by  reason  of  any 
thing  ;  and  I  say  that  Utilitarianism  has  no  impera 
tive  or  adequate  word  for  the  selfish  man  who  elects 
to  take  his  chances  with  his  selfishness.  "  If  morality 
has  no  better  foundation  than  a  tendency  to  promote 
happiness,"  well  observes  Mr.  Froude,  "its  sanction  is 
but  a  feeble  uncertainty.  If  it  be  recognized  as  part 
of  the  constitution  of  the  world,  it  carries  with  it  its 
right  to  command."  Emerson  says  somewhere,  "  Xo 
matter  how  you  seem  to  fatten  on  a  crime,  that  can 
never  be  good  for  the  bee  which  is  bad  for  the  hive  ; " 
and  whether  true  of  bees  or  not,  it  is  certainly  true 
of  men  and  the  human  hive,  which  are  really  what 
are  here  spoken  of.  But  it  is  absolutely  and  uni 
versally  true  of  humanity  only  because  humanity 
is  immortal,  and  because  society  is  its  redeemed 
form.1 

With,  the  real  truth  of  Utilitarianism,  Emerson 
was  of  course  in  heartiest  accord.  He  was  in  most 

1  An  important  chapter  in  any  complete  study  of  Emerson's 
ethics  would  be  upon  his  conception  of  the  moral  character  of 
society  as  such.  "Civilization  depends  on  morality,"  he  says. 
"The  evolution  of  a  highly  destined  society  must  be  moral,  it 
must  run  in  the  grooves  of  the  celestial  wheels  ;  "  and  he  would 
have  said  as  freely  that  morality  depends  on  civilization  or  social 
institutions.  Man  creates  moral  institutions,  which  become  them 
selves  a  moral  power  and  conservator  and  canon  and  rebuke.  There 
is  a  social  ideal  always  extant,  a  higher  always  being  born,  which 
uplifts  individuals  above  themselves.  Emerson  notes  how  the  moral 
tone  is  immediatelj-  elevated  and  ennobled  when  men  address  large 
bodies  or  the  nation. 


262  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

natural  accord  with  it ;  for,  sovereign  of  idealists, 
Poor  Richard  himself  was  not  more  shrewd  and  prac 
tical  than  he.  "The  highest  proof  of  civility,"  he 
said,  "  is  iliat  the  whole  public  action  of  the  State 
is  directed  on  securing  the  greatest  good  of  the 
greatest  number."  But  he  well  knew  that  the  great 
est  good  Is  spiritual  good,  and  that  the  greatest  num 
ber  is  the  whole.  He  well  knew  that  the  greatest 
good  mighc  lie  in  some  act  of  justice  that  should 
decimate  the  material  resources  of  a  whole  commu 
nity.  With  a  single  word  he  exposed  the  spirit  for 
which  "  Utilitarianism "  too  often  stands :  "  Instead 
of  enthusiasm,  a  low  prudence  seeks  to  hold  society 
stanch ;  but  its  arms  are  too  short :  cordage  and 
machinery  never  supply  the  place  of  life."  And  he 
touched  the  ultimate  truth  in  the  couplet,  — 

"  He  that  feeds  men  serveth  few  ; 
He  serves  all  who  dares  be  true." 

And  now  what  is  Emerson's  relation  to  the  so- 
called  ethics  of  evolution  ?  Not  in  the  least  an 
antagonistic  relation,  but  a  vivifying  and  rationaliz 
ing  one.  His  philosophy  has  abundant  room  for 
all  the  facts  of  evolution.  His  remarkable  general 
anticipations  of  Darwinism  have  been  frequently 
pointed  out,  and  were  dwelt  upon  by  Dr.  Harris  in  his 
lecture  on  "  Nature."  1  But  he  would  view  a  work 

1  I  may  refar  to  an  article  of  my  own  in  the  ' '  Princeton  Review  " 
for  Novjmber,  1884,  on  "Emerson  and  the  Philosophy  of  Evolu 
tion,"  as  supplementing  this  portion  of  the  discussion. 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  263 

like  Mr.  Spencer's  "  Data  of  Ethics  "  as  merely  an 
account  of  processes,  still  without  explanation.  J"That 
explanation  is  the  teleological  principle,  the  truth 
that  the  eternally  creative  and  informing  Force  is 
itself  moral  and  jideal.  Moral  life  is  not  something 
into  which  we  drift.  It  is  that  thing  whereto  we 
are  sent.  The  moral  life  is  the  centre,  the  genesis, 
and  the  commanding  factj  "  You  must  have  a  source 
higher  than  your  tap."  "  We  are  made  of  the  moral 
sentiment,"  says  Emerson  ;  "  the  world  is  built  by 
it,  things  endure  as  they  share  it ;  all  beauty,  all  in 
telligence,  all  health,  exist  by  it.  .  .  .  An  Eastern 
poet  said  that  God  had. made  Justice  so  dear  to  the 
heart  of  Xature  that,  if  any  injustice  lurked  any 
where  under  the  sky,  the  blue  vault  would  shrivel 
to  a  snake-skin  and  cast  it  out  by  spasms.  But  the 
spasms  of  Xature  are  years  and  centuries,  and  it  will 
tax  the  faith  of  man  to  wait  so  long." 

Belief  in  "  a  force  always  at  work  to  make  the  best 
better  and  the  worst  good,"  —  that,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  was  one  of  the  four  articles  of  Emerson's  creed, 
which  was  read  at  the  beginning.  Keeping  that  in 
mind,  viewing  evolution  simply  as  the  method  of 
the  Moral  Mind  of  the  universe,  then  we  shall  find 
that  there  is  no  process  described  by  Spencer  which 
might  not  find  proper  place  in  the  pages  of  Emerson. 
So  notable  indeed  is  the  element  of  evolution  in  his 
own  ethical  discussions,  that  we  may  justly  speak  of 
the  Spencerisui  that  was  in  Emerson  before  Spencer, 
in  the  same  way  that  we  speak  of  the  Darwinism 


264  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

there.  Perhaps  no  single  passage  better  combines 
Emerson's  optimistic  teleology  and  his  doctrine  of 
evolution  than  this  :  — 

"  Fate  involves  the  melioration.  No  statement  of  the 
universe  can  have  any  soundness  which  does  not  admit 
its  ascending  effort.  The  direction  of  the  whole  and  of 
the  parts  is  toward  benefit,  and  in  proportion  to  the 
health.  Behind  every  individual  closes  organization; 
before  him  opens  liberty.'* 

He  also  says  :  — 

"  The  history  of  Nature,  from  first  to  last,  is  incessant 
advance  from  less  to  more,  from  rude  to  finer  organization, 
the  globe  of  matter  thus  conspiring  with  the  principle  of 
undying  hope  in  man.  .  .  .  The  best  civilization  yet  is 
only  valuable  as  a  ground  of  hope." 

To  these  two  passages  I  add  two  others,  in  which 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  treated  in  detail,  with 
special  reference  to  its  ethical  bearings  :  — 

"  Nature  is  a  tropical  swamp  in  sunshine,  on  whose 
purlieus  we  hear  the  song  of  summer  birds,  and  see  pris 
matic  dew-drops,  —  but  her  interiors  are  terrific,  full  of 
hydras  and  crocodiles.  In  the  pre-adamite,  Nature  bred 
valor  only ;  by  and  by  she  gets  on  to  man,  and  adds 
tenderness,  and  thus  raises  virtue  piecemeal..  When  we 
trace  from  the  beginning,  that  ferocity  has  uses ;  only  so 
are  the  conditions  of  the  then  world  met,  and  these 
monsters  are  the  scavengers,  executioners,  diggers,  pio 
neers,  and  fertilizers,  destroying  what  is  more  destructive 
than  they,  and  making  better  life  possible.  We  see  the 


E^fERSON'S  ETHICS.  265 

steady  aim  of  beuefit  in  view  from  the  first.  Melioration 
is  the  law.  The  cruellest  foe  is  a  masked  benefactor. 
The  wars  which  make  history  so  dreary  have  served  the 
cause  of  truth  and  virtue.  There  is  always  an  instinctive 
sense  of  right,  an  obscure  idea  which  animates  either 
party,  and  which  in  long  periods  vindicates  itself  at  last. 
Thus  a  sublime  confidence  is  fed  at  the  bottom  of  the 
heart  that,  in  spite  of  appearances,  in  spite  of  malignity 
and  blind  self-interest  living  for  the  moment,  an  eternal, 
beneficent  necessity  is  always  bringing  things  right ;  and 
though  we  should  fold  our  arms,  —  which  we  cannot  do, 
for  .our  duty  requires  ns  to  be  the  very  hands  of  this 
guiding  sentiment,  and  work  in  the  present  moment,  —  the 
evils  we  suffer  will  at  last  end  themselves  through  the 
incessant  opposition  of  Xature  to  everything  hurtful." 

The  other  passage  is  yet  more  striking :  — 

"  Very  few  of  onr  race  can  be  said  to  be  yet  finished 
men.  We  still  carry  sticking  to  us  some  remains  of  the 
preceding  inferior  quadruped  organization.  We  call  these 
millions  men ;  but  they  are  not  yet  men.  Half  engaged 
in  the  soil,  pawing  to  get  free,  man  needs  all  the  music 
that  can  be  brought  to  disengage  him.  If  Love,  red 
Love,  with  tears  and  joy,  if  Want  with  his  scourge,  if 
War  with  his  cannonade,  if  Christianity  with  its  charity, 
if  Trade  with  its  money,  if  Art  with  its  portfolios,  if 
Science  with  her  telegraphs  through  the  deeps  of  space 
and  time,  can  set  his  dull  nerves  throbbing,  and  by  loud 
taps  on  his  rough  chrysalis  can  break  its  walls  and  let  the 
new  creature  emerge  erect  and  free,  —  make  way  and  sing 
psean  !  The  age  of  the  quadruped  is  to  go  out,  the  age  of 
the  brain  and  of  the  heart  is  to  come  in.  The  time  will 


266  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

come  when  the  evil  forms  we  have  known  can  no  more 
be  organized.  Man's  culture  can  spare  nothing,  wants  all 
the  material.  He  is  to  convert  all  impediments  into 
instruments,  all  enemies  into  power.  The  formidable 
mischief  will  only  make  the  more  useful  slave.  And  if 
one  shall  read  the  future  of  the  race  hinted  in  the  organic 
effort  of  Nature  to  mount  and  meliorate,  and  the  corre 
sponding  impulse  to  the  better  in  the  human  being,  we 
shall  dare  affirm  that  there  is  nothing  he  will  not  over 
come  and  convert,  until  at  last  culture  shall  absorb  the 
chaos  and  gehenna.  He  will  convert  the  Furies  into 
Muses,  and  the  hells  into  benefit." 

"  Behind  every  individual  closes  organization  ;  be 
fore  him  opens  liberty."  No  man  ever  laid  greater 
stress  upon  organization  and  environment  than  Emer 
son.  He  says  :  — 

"  Men  are  what  their  mothers  made  them.  You  may 
as  well  ask  a  loom  which  weaves  huckabuck  why  it  does 
not  make  cashmere,  as  expect  poetry  from  this  engineer, 
or  a  chemical  discovery  from  that  jobber.  Ask  the  digger 
in  the  ditch  to  explain  Newton's  laws ;  the  fine  organs  of 
his  brain  have  been  pinched  by  overwork  and  squalid 
poverty  from  father  to  son  for  a  hundred  years." 

"  I  knew  a  witty  physician  who  found  the  creed  in  the 
biliary  duct,  and  used  to  affirm  that  if  there  was  disease 
in  the  liver,  the  man  became  a  Calvinist,  and  if  that  organ 
was  sound,  he  became  a  Unitarian." 

Many  pages  of  the  essay  on  "  Fate  "  —  on  the 
whole,  the  greatest  of  the  strictly  ethical  essays  — 
are  occupied  by  this  strong  showing  of  the  tyranny 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  267 

of  circumstance.  Some  of  his  friends  complained 
that  he  ran  the  risk  of  making  the  argument  for 
circumstance  and  fate  so  strong  that  he  could  not 
answer  it.  But  he  replied :  "  I  dip  my  pen  in  the 
blackest  ink,  because  I  am  not  afraid  of  falling  into 
my  ink-pot.  I  have  no  sympathy  with  a  poor  man 
I  knew,  who,  when  suicides  abounded,  told  me  he 
dared  not  look  at  his  razor.  A  just  thinker  will 
allow  full  swing  to  his  scepticism.  I  do  not  fear 
scepticism  for  any  good  soul."  "  If  you  please  to 
plant  yourself  on  the  side  of  Fate,"  he  said,  "  and 
say,  Fate  is  all ;  then  we  say,  a  part  of  Fate  is  the 
freedom  of  man."  "  To  hazard  the  contradiction,  — 
freedom  is  necessary."  "Shall  I  preclude  my  future," 
he  asks,  in  his  Yankee  manner,  "  by  taking  a  high 
seat  and  kindly  adapting  my  conversation  to  the 
shape  of  my  head  ?  When  I  come  to  that,  the  doc 
tors  shall  buy  me  for  a  cent." 

"  Behind    every    individual    closes    organization  : 

v  O 

before  him  opens  liberty."  The  latter  is  as  neces 
sary  and  as  evident  to  Emerson  as  the  former. 
Freedom  working  through  organization  to  freedom, 
—  that  is  the  process  which  he  sees  ;  and  the  soul 
of  man  is  one  of  the  rivulets  of  freedom.  He 
says :  — 

"  We  are  sure  that,  though  we  know  not  how,  necessity 
does  comport  with  liberty,  the  individual  with  the  world, 
my  polarity  with  the  spirit  of  the  times.  .  .  .  Morals  im 
plies  freedom  and  will.  The  will  constitutes  the  man. 
He  has  his  life  in  Xature,  like  a  beast :  but  choice  is  born 


268  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

in  him ;  here  is  he  that  chooses ;  here  is  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  the  July  Fourth  of  zoology  and 
astronomy.  He  chooses,  —  as  the  rest  of  creation  does 
not." 

"  Morals  implies  freedom."  This  principle  has 
been  declared  by  almost  every  great  thinker  from 
Plato  and  Aristotle  to  Kant.  To  me  it  seems  self- 
evident.  I  think  it  must  be  regarded  as  an  axiom  in 
ethics.  The  tree  obeys  the  law,  but  the  tree  is  not 
moral.  Morals  implies  freedom  ;  but  freedom  is 
moral  only  when  it  obeys  the  righteous  necessity. 
"  Obedience  alone,"  says  Emerson,  "  gives  the  right 
to  command." 

"  We  throw  ourselves  by  obedience  into  the  circuit  of 
the  heavenly  wisdom  and  share  the  secret  of  God." 

"  We  arrive  at  virtue  by  taking  its  direction  instead  of 
imposing  ours." 

"  If  you  wish  to  avail  yourself  of  the  might  of  the 
infinite  forces,  and  in  like  manner  if  you  wish  the  force 
of  the  intellect,  the  force  of  the  will,  you  must  take  their 
divine  direction,  not  they  yours.  Things  work  to  their 
ends,  not  to  yours,  and  will  certainly  defeat  any  adventurer 
who  fights  against  this  ordination." 

"  The  education  of  the  will  is  the  object  of  our  exist 
ence.  " 

"  All  our  power,  all  our  happiness,  consists  in  our  recep 
tion  of  the  hints  of  the  soul,  which  ever  become  clearer 
and  grander  as  they  are  obeyed." 

"  We  need  only  obey.  There  is  guidance  for  each  of 
us,  and  by  lowly  listening  we  shall  hear  the  right  word." 


EMERSOFS  ETHICS.  269 

"  A  point  of  education  that  I  can  never  too  much  insist 
upon  is  this  tenet,  that  every  individual  man  has  a  bias 
•which  he  must  obey,  and  that  it  is  only  as  he  feels  and 
obeys  this  that  he  rightly  develops  and  attains  his  legiti 
mate  power  in  the  world.  ...  In  morals,  this  privatest  | 
oracle  is  conscience;  in  intellect,  genius." 

Morality,  then,  is  the  conscious  adoption  of  the  - 
universal,  it  is  the  controlling  presence  of  the  uni 
versal  in  the  individual.  Again  and  again  we  come 
back  to  that  great  and  simple  thought.  V"  Our  first  \ 
experiences  in  moral  as  in  intellectual  nature,"  says 
Emerson,  "  force  us  to  discriminate  a  universal  mind, 
identical  in  all  men.  Certain  biases,  talents,  execu 
tive  skills,  are  special  to  each  individual ;  but  the 
high,  contemplative,  all-commanding  vision,  the  sense 
of  Eight  and  Wrong,  is  alike  in  all.  Its  attributes 
are  self-existence,  eternity,  intuition,  and  command. 
It  is  the  mind  of  the  mind.  We  belong  to  it,  not 
it  to  us.  It  is  in  all  men,  and  constitutes  them 
men."  Theodore  Parker  spoke  no  more  absolutely, 
and  scarcely  oftener,  than  Emerson  of  conscience  as 
"the  voice  of  God." 

"  The  moral  sentiment  comes  from  the  highest  place. 
It  is  that  which,  being  in  all  sound  natures,  and  strongest 
in  the  best  and  most  gifted  men,  we  know  to  be  implanted 
by  the  Creator  of  men.  It  is  a  commandment  at  every 
moment  and  in  every  condition  of  life  to  do  the  duty  of 
that  moment  and  to  abstain  from  doing  the  wrong.  And 
it  is  so  near  and  inward  and  constitutional  to  each,  that 


270  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

no  commandment  can  compare  with  it  in  authority.  All 
wise  men  regard  it  as  the  voice  of  the  Creator  himself." 

"  The  inviolate  soul  is  in  perpetual  telegraphic  commu 
nication  with  the  source  of  events.  ...  If  we  should 
ask  ourselves  what  is  this  self-respect,  it  would  carry  us 
to  the  highest  problems.  It  is  our  practical  perception 
of  the  Deity  in  man.  It  has  its  deep  foundations  in 
religion." 

"  Let  man  learn  the  revelation  of  all  Nature  and  all 
thought  to  his  heart;  this,  namely,  that  the  Highest 
dwells  with  him;  that  the  sources  of  Nature  are  in  his 
own  mind,  if  the  sentiment  of  duty  is  there." 

"  It  is  impossible  that  the  creative  power  should  exclude 
itself.  Into  every  intelligence  there  is  a  door  which  is 
never  closed,  through  which  the  Creator  passes." 

"  The  soul  of  God  is  poured  into  the  world  through  the 
thoughts  of  men.  The  world  stands  on  ideas,  and  not  on 
iron  or  cotton ;  and  the  iron  of  iron,  the  fire  of  fire,  the 
ether  and  source  of  all  the  elements,  is  moral  force." 

In  one  of  the  poems  are  these  striking  lines :  — 

"  But  love  me  then  and  only,  when  you  know 
Me  for  the  channel  of  the  rivers  of  God, 
From  deep  ideal  fontal  heavens  that  flow." 

The  following  lines  from  "  Saadi "  will  be  well 
remembered :  — 

"  Open  innumerable  doors, 
The  heaven  where  unveiled  Allah  pours 
The  flood  of  truth,  the  flood  of  good, 
The  Seraph's  and  the  Cherub's  food  : 
Those  doors  are  men  :  the  Pariah  hind 
Admits  thee  to  the  perfect  Mind." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  271 

"  In  morals/'  I  have  quoted,  "  this  privatest  oracle 
is  conscience ;  in  intellect,  genius."  Emerson  con 
tinually  speaks  of  genius  in  almost  the  identical 
terms  which  he  uses  of  morality,  and  always  as  the 
presence  of  the  Divine  and  the  yielding  of  ourselves 
to  its  control  Genius  in  men  is  "the  Godhead  in 
distribution."  "Genius  is  an  emanation  of  that  it 
tells  of."  "Genius  is  religious." 

"The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome, 
And  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian  Rome, 
"Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity  ; 
Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free  ; 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew. 

The  passive  Master  lent  his  hand 

To  the  vast  soul  that  o'er  him  planned." 

"  We  cannot  look  at  works  of  art  but  they  teach  us  how 
near  man  is  to  creating.  Michael  Angelo  is  largely  filled 
with  the  Creator  that  made  and  makes  men.  How  much 
of  the  original  craft  remains  in  him,  and  he  a  mortal  man  ! 
In  him  and  the  like  perfecter  brains  the  instinct  is  resist 
less,  knows  the  right  way,  is  melodious,  and  at  all  points 
divine.  The  reason  we  set  so  high  a  value  on  any  poetry, 
—  as  often  on  a  line  or  a0  phrase  as  on  a  poem,  —  is  that  it 
is  a  new  work  of  Xature,  as  a  man  is." 

"  The  delight  which  a  work  of  art  affords  seems  to  arise 
from  our  recognizing  in  it  the  mind  that  formed  Xature, 
again  in  active  operation.  It  differs  from  the  works  of 
Nature  in  this,  that  they  are  organically  reproductive.  This 
is  not,  but  spiritually  it  is  prolific  by  its  powerful  action 
on  the  intellects  of  men.  Hence  it  follows  that  a  study 


272  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

of  admirable  works  of  art  sharpens  our  perceptions  of  the 
beauty  of  oSTature  ;  that  a  certain  analogy  reigns  throughout 
the  wonders  of  both ;  that  the  contemplation  of  a  work  of 
great  art  draws  us  into  a  state  of  mind  which  may  be  called 
religious." 

"  There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  limit  to  these  new 
informations  of  the  same  Spirit  that  made  the  elements 
at  first,  and  now,  through  man,  works  them." 

A  worker  together  with  God, — that  is  the  defini 
tion  of  the  genius  and  of  the  moral  man  alike.  A 
thinker  of  God's  thoughts  after  him,  —  that  is  the 
true  man  of  science.  And  an  omnipresent  and  ulti 
mately  irresistible  force  is  impelling  humanity  to 
this  love  and  realization  of  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good. 

"  The  fiend  that  man  harries 

Is  love  of  the  Best  ; 
Yawns  the  pit  of  the  Dragon, 

Lit  by  rays  from  the  Blest. 
The  Lethe  of  Nature 

Can't  trance  him  again, 
Whose  soul  sees  the  perfect, 

Which  his  eyes  seek  in  vain." 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  similar  treatment  of  genius 
and  virtue  by  Emerson,  because  the  point  which  I 
would  next  emphasize,  as  of  great  significance  in  his 
ethics,  is  that  of  the  harmony  and  unity  of  the  pow 
ers  of  the  mind.  I  have  already  spoken  at  length 
of  Emerson's  general  conception  of  the  community 
of  forces  and  the  identity  of  law.  "  The  identity  of 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  273 

gravitation  with  purity  of  heart,"  as  we  will  not  for 
get,  is  our  text.  "  All  departments  of  life,"  he  said, 
"  feel  and  labor  to  express  the  identity  of  their  law. 
They  are  rays  of  one  sun ;  they  translate  each  into 
a  new  language  the  sense  of  the  other." 

"  Every  fact  is  related  on  one  side  to  sensation,  and  on 
the  other  to  morals." 

"Intellect  and  morals  appear  only  the  material  forces 
on  a  higher  plane." 

"  We  are  as  much  strangers  in  Nature  as  we  are  aliens 
from  God.  "We  do  not  understand  the  notes  of  hirds." 

"  I  delight  in  tracing  those  wonderful  powers,  the  elec 
tricity  and  gravity  of  the  human  world." 

"  In  proportion  as  a  man's  life  comes  into  union  with 
truth,  his  thoughts  approach  to  a  parallelism  with  the 
currents  of  natural  laws,  so  that  he  easily  expresses  his 
meaning  by  natural  symbols." 

"There  is  but  one  Eeason,"  he  says  in  this  con 
nection.  "  The  mind  that  made  the  world  is  not  one 
mind,  but  the  mind." 

But  nowhere  does  Emerson  emphasize  this  con 
ception  of  unity  so  strikingly  as  in  its  reference  to 
the  powers  of  the  mind,  and  especially  to  genius 
and  virtue.  "  There  is  genius,"  he  says,  "  as  well 
in  virtue  as  in  intellect." 

"  Men  are  ennobled  by  morals  and  by  intellect ;  but 
those  two  elements  know  each  other,  and  always  beckon 
to  each  other,  until  at  last  they  meet  in  the  man,  if  he  is 
to  be  truly  great." 

18 


274  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"So  intimate  is  this  alliance  of  mind  and  heart,  that 
talent  uniformly  sinks  with  character." 

"The  moment  of  your  loss  of  faith  and  acceptance  of 
the  lucrative  standard  will  be  marked  in  the  pause  or  sol 
stice  of  genius,  the  sequent  retrogression,  and  the  inevi 
table  loss  of  attraction  to  other  minds.  The  vulgar  are 
sensible  of  the  change  in  you,  and  of  your  descent,  though 
they  clap  you  on  the  back  and  congratulate  you  on  your 
increased  common-sense." 

"The  high  intellect  is  absolutely  at  one  with  moral 
nature.  A  thought  is  imbosomed  in  a  sentiment,  and  the 
attempt  to  detach  and  blazon  the  thought  is  like  a  show 
of  cut  flowers." 

"  I  see  that  when  souls  reach  a  certain  clearness  of 
perception  they  accept  a  knowledge  and  motive  above 
selfishness." 

"  Of  two  men,  each  obeying  his  own  thought,  he  whose 
thought  is  deepest  will  be  the  strongest  character." 

"As  much  love,  so  much  perception." 

"All  the  great  ages  have  been  ages  of  belief." 

"  It  was  the  conviction  of  Plato,  of  Van  Helmont,  of 
Pascal,  of  Swedenborg,  that  piety  is  an  essential  condition 
of  science  ;  that  great  thoughts  come  from  the  heart." 1  / 

"In  the  voice  of  Genius  I  hear  invariably  the  moral 
tone,  even  when  it  is  disowned  in  words." 

"  All  high  beauty  has  a  moral  element  in  it,  and  I  find 
the  antique  sculpture  as  ethical  as  Marcus  Antoninus,  and 
the  beauty  ever  in  proportion  to  the  depth  of  thought." 

"  The  highest  platform  of  eloquence  is  the  moral  sen 
timent.  ...  I  have  observed  that  in  all  public  speaking 

1  We  remember  here  that  word  of  Anselm's,  —  "I  believe,  in  order 
that  I  may  know." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  275 

the  rule  of  the  orator  begins,  not  in  the  array  of  his  facts, 
but  when  his  deep  conviction,  and  the  right  and  necessity 
he  feels  to  convey  that  conviction  to  his  audience,  —  when 
these  shine  and  burn  in  his  address.  .  .  .  There  is  a  cer 
tain  transfiguration  ;  all  great  orators  have  it,  and  men 
who  wish  to  be  orators  simulate  it." 

"The  finer  the  sense  of  justice,  the  better  poet."  The 
habit  of  injustice  "  takes  away  the  presentiments." 

"  There  was  never  poet  who  had  not  the  heart  in  the 
right  place.  The  old  trouveur,  Pons  Capdueil,  wrote  :  — 

'  Oft  have  I  heard,  and  deem  the  witness  true, 
"Whom  man  delights  in,  God  delights  in  too.' 

All  beauty  warms  the  heart,  is  a  sign  of  health,  prosperity, 
and  the  favor  of  God." 

"  Show  me,  said  Sarona  in  the  novel,  one  wicked  man 
who  has  written  poetry,  and  I  will  show  you  where  his 
poetry  is  not  poetry." 

"  In  poetry,  said  Goethe,  only  the  really  great  and  pure 
advances  us,  and  this  exists  as  a  second  ^nature,  either 
elevating  us  to  itself,  or  rejecting  us." 

Does  any  intellectual  man  need  to  have  this  truth 
painfully  enforced  ?  Do  we  not  all  learn  rapidly,  as 
writers,  as  speakers,  as  public  workers  in  any  way, 
that  there  is  no  secret  to  success  and  power  but  that 
of  simple  sincerity  ;  that  every  fond  admixture  of  pre 
tension  or  of  pedantry  instantly  betrays  itself  and 
vitiates  the  effect;  that  there  is  no  weakness  but 
deception  and  diplomacy,  and  no  power  but  truth  ? 
There  is  no  power  but  truth.  There  is  no  success 


276  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

but  morality.  "Civilization  depends  upon  moral 
ity,"  says  Emerson.  All  high  private  fortune  depends 
upon  it  no  less. 

"The  soul  at  the  centre  of  Nature  has  so  infused  its 
strong  enchantment  into  Nature,  that  we  prosper  when  we 
accept  its  advice,  and  when  we  struggle  to  wound  its 
creatures  our  hands  are  glued  to  our  sides,  or  they  beat 
our  own  breasts." 

"  If  I  will  stand  upright,  the  creation  cannot  bend  me. 
But  if  I  violate  myself,  if  I  commit  a  crime,  the  lightning 
loiters  by  the  speed  of  retribution,  and  every  act  is  not 
hereafter  but  instantaneously  rewarded  according  to  its 
quality." 

"  There  is  a  blessed  necessity  by  which  the  interest  of 
men  is  always  driving  them  to  the  right ;  and,  again, 
making  all  crime  mean  and  ugly." 

"  Crime  and  punishment  grow  out  of  one  stem.  Char 
acter  is  always  known.  Thefts  never  enrich  ;  alms  never 
impoverish ;  murder  will  speak  out  of  stone  walls.  The 
league  between  virtue  and  nature  engages  all  things  to 
assume  a  hostile  front  to  vice.  All  our  political  disasters 
grow  as  logically  out  of  our  attempts  in  the  past  to  do 
without  justice,  as  the  sinking  of  some  part  of  your  house 
comes  of  defect  in  the  foundation." 

"The  laws  of  the  soul  execute  themselves,  There  is 
in  the  soul  a  justice  whose  retributions  are  instant  and 
entire.  He  who  does  a  good  deed  is  instantly  ennobled. 
He  who  does  a  mean  deed  is  by  the  action  itself  con 
tracted.  ...  If  a  man  is  at  heart  just,  then  in  so  far  is 
he  God  ;  the  safety  of  God,  the  immortality  of  God,  the 
majesty  of  God,  do  enter  into  that  man  with  justice." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  277 

The  inevitable  disaster  of  wrong  is  the  guarantee 
of  morality.  The  moral  alone  is  strong.  The  moral 
alone  can  succeed.  The  moral  is  the  measure  of 
power.  It  is  also  the  measure  of  health.  This  is  a 
point  upon  which  Emerson  dwells  with  great  force 
and  frequency,  —  the  interdependence  of  morals  and 
mental  and  even  bodily  health.  "  Genius  is  health," 
he  says,  "  and  Beauty  is  health,  and  Virtue  is  health." 

"  Xo  talent  gives  the  impression  of  sanity  if  wanting 
the  moral  sentiment." 

"  The  moral  sentiment  has  the  property  of  invigorating." 

"Strength  enters  just  as  much  as  the  moral  element 
prevails." 

Character  is  "  that  sublime  health  which  values  one  mo 
ment  as  another,  and  makes  us  great  iu  all  conditions." 

"  The  moral  must  be  the  measure  of  health." 

"  I  have  heard  that  whoever  loves  is  in  no  condition 
old." 

"  It  is  certain  that  worship  stands  in  some  commanding 
relation  to  the  health  of  man  and  to  his  highest  powers,  so 
as  to  be  in  some  measure  the  source  of  intellect." 

"  A  healthy  soul  stands  united  with  the  Just  and  the 
True,  as  the  magnet  arranges  itself  with  the  pole."  l 

"  If  your  eye  is  on  the  eternal,  your  intellect  will  grow." 

"  Broader  and  deeper  we  must  write  our  annals,  —  from 
an  ethical  reformation,  from  an  influx  of  the  ever  new, 
ever  sanative  conscience." 

1  "  He  that  has  a  soul  unasphyxied  will  never  want  a  religion  ; 
he  that  has  a  soul  asphyxied,  reduced  to  a  succedaneum  for  salt,  will 
never  find  any  religion,  though  you  rose  from  the  dead  to  preach 
him  one."  —  CARLYLE. 


278  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Conversely,  he  says  of  health,  "  Health  is  the  con 
dition  of  wisdom."  He  lays  down  as  the  first  obvious 
rule  of  life,  —  Get  health.  "Health  is  the  condition 
of  wisdom.  .  .  .  Sickness  is  a  cannibal  which  eats  up 
all  the  life  and  youth  it  can  lay  hold  of,  and  absorbs 
its  own  sons  and  daughters.  I  figure  it  as  a  pale, 
wailing,  distracted  phantom,  absolutely  selfish,  heed 
less  of  what  is  good  and  great,  attentive  to  its  sensa 
tions,  losing  its  soul,  and  afflicting  other  souls  with 
meanness  and  mopings,  and  with  ministration  to  its 
voracity  of  trifles."  He  quotes  with  approval  the 
word  of  Dr.  Johnson,  — "  Every  man  is  a  rascal  as 
soon  as  he  is  sick."  He  finds  somewhat  moral  in  all 
health  and  all  beauty,  and  he  preaches  the  duty  of 
cheerfulness. 

"  Set  not  thy  foot  on  graves  : 
Hear  what  wine  and  roses  say  ; 
The  mountain  chase,  the  summer  waves, 
The  crowded  town,  thy  feet  may  well  delay. 

"  Life  is  too  short  to  waste 
In  critic  peep  or  cynic  bark, 
Quarrel  or  reprimand  : 
'T  will  soon  be  dark  ; 
Up  !  mind  thine  own  aim,  and 
God  speed  the  mark  !  " 

The  progress  of  humanity  is  to  completer  health,  a 
greater  purity,  a  nobler  knowledge,  and  a  deeper  joy. 

"It  is  true  there  is  evil  and  good,  night  and  day ;  but 
these  are  not  equal.  The  day  is  great  and  final.  The  night 
is  for  the  day,  but  the  day  is  not  for  the  night." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  279 

"  Man  helps  himself  by  larger  generalizations.  The  les 
son  of  life  is  practically  to  generalize  ;  to  believe  what  the 
years  and  the  centuries  say,  against  the  hours  ;  to  resist 
the  usurpation  of  particulars  ;  to  penetrate  to  their  catholic 
sense." 

With  the  most  practical  eye  and  hand  to  deal 
with  evils  and  with  sin,  his  philosophical  optimism 
is  absolute.  "  A  hopeless  spirit,"  lie  says,  "  puts  out 
the  eyes."  Moreover,  the  deepest  insight,  like  the 
deepest  experience,  worketh  hope. 

"  Ever  as  you  ascend  your  proper  and  native  path,  you 
rise  on  the  same  steps  to  science  and  to  joy." 

"  Men  are  all  secret  believers  in  the  Law  alive  and 
beautiful,  else  the  word  justice  would  have  no  meaning  : 
they  believe  that  the  best  is  the  true ;  that  right  is  done 
at  last,  or  chaos  is  come." 

It  is  the  belief  in  Providence,  in  the  Divine  Xature, 
"  which  carries  on  its  administration  by  good  men." 

"  I  find  the  survey  of  these  cosrnical  powers  a  doctrine 
of  consolation  in  the  dark  hours  of  private  or  public  for 
tune.  It  shows  us  the  world  alive,  guided,  incorruptible  ; 
that  its  cannon  cannot  be  stolen  nor  its  virtues  misap 
plied.  It  shows  us  the  long  Providence,  the  safeguards 
of  rectitude." 

"  I  hope  we  have  reached  the  end  of  our  unbelief, 
have  come  to  a  belief  that  there  is  a  divine  Providence 
in  the  world,  which  will  not  save  us  but  through  our  own 
co-operation." 

"  Nature  works  through  her  appointed  elements ;  and 


280  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

ideas  must  work  through  the  brains  and  the  arms  of  good 
and  brave  men  or  they  are  no  better  than  dreams." 

"  Will  not  man  one  day  open  his  eyes  and  see  how  dear 
he  is  to  the  soul  of  Nature,  —  how  near  it  is  to  him  1 " 

"  The  ancients  believed  in  a  serene  and  beautiful  Gen 
ius  which  ruled  in  the  affairs  of  nations ;  which  with  a 
slow  but  stern  justice  carried  forward  the  fortunes  of  cer 
tain  chosen  houses,  weeding  out  single  offenders  or  offend 
ing  families,  and  securing  at  last  the  firm  prosperity  of 
the  favorites  of  Heaven.  It  was  too  narrow  a  view  of  the 
Eternal  Nemesis.  There  is  a  serene  Providence  which 
rules  the  fate  of  nations,  which  makes  little  account  of 
time,  little  of  one  generation  or  race,  makes  no  account 
of  disasters,  conquers  alike  by  what  is  called  defeat  or  by 
what  is  called  victory,  thrusts  aside  enemy  and  obstruc 
tion,  crushes  everything  immoral  as  inhuman,  and  obtains 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  best  race  by  the  sacrifice  of 
everything  which  resists  the  moral  laws  of  the  world.  It 
makes  its  own  instruments,  creates  the  man  for  the  time, 
trains  him  in  poverty,  inspires  his  genius,  and  arms  him  for 
his  task."  If  he  fail,  another  shall  rise,  "  Though  ministers 
of  justice  and  power  fail,  Justice  and  Power  fail  never." 

It  is  in  the  contemplation  of  this  "  sublime  and 
friendly  Destiny  by  which  the  human  race  is  guided," 
that  Emerson  rises  to  his  highest  inspirations.  The 
thought  of  a  mechanical,  unconscious,  automatic 
world  is  to  him  impossible.  Neither  morals  nor 
intellect  has  so  an  explanation  or  a  voucher. 

"  There  is  a  persuasion  in  the  soul  of  man  that  he  is 
here  for  cause ;  that  he  was  put  down  in  this  place  by  the 
Creator  to  do  the  work  for  which  he  inspires  him." 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  281 

"  Nature  is  too  thin  a  screen ;  the  glory  of  the  One 
breaks  in  everywhere." 

"  Men  do  not  see  that  He,  that  It,  is  there,  next  and 
within  ;  the  thought  of  the  thought ;  the  affair  of  affairs ; 
that  he  is  existence,  and  take  him  from  them  and  they 
would  not  be." 

"0  my  brothers,  God  exists ;  there  is  a  soul  at  the 
centre  of  Xature  and  over  the  will  of  every  man.  .  .  . 
The  whole  course  of  things  goes  to  teach  us  faith." 

"  Unlovely,  nay  frightful,  is  the  solitude  of  the  soul 
which  is  without  God  in  the  world." 

"A  man  of  thought  must  feel  the  thought  that  is  parent 
of  the  universe.  .  .  .  The  world  is  saturated  with  deity." 

"  The  man  who  shall  be  born  shall  rely  on  the  Law 
alive  and  beautiful,  which  works  over  our  heads  and  under 
our  feet." 

The  Law  is  alive ;  it  knows :  —  this  is  ever  his 
thought ;  and  perhaps  it  is  in  a  line  of  poetry  that 
he  has  put  the  truth  most  adequately :  — 

"And  conscious  Law  is  King  of  kings." 

In  this  God's  universe,  he  says, 

"What  is  excellent, 
As  God  lives,  is  permanent." 

"  I  have  heard,"  he  says,  —  this  is  ever  the  form 
of  his,  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  — 

"  I  have  heard  that  whenever  the  name  of  man  is  spo 
ken,  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  announced ;  it  cleaves 
to  his  constitution.  .  .  .  All  our  intellectual  action,  not 
promises  but  bestows  a  feeling  of  absolute  existence." 


282  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  A  man  speaking  from  insight  affirms  of  himself  what 
is  true  of  the  mind  :  seeing  its  immortality,  he  says,  I  am 
immortal ;  seeing  its  invincibility,  he  says,  I  am  strong." 

But  "  the  teachings  of  the  high  spirit  are  abste 
mious,  and,  in  regard  to  particulars,  negative."  Em 
erson,  too,  is  abstemious ;  and  any  who  are  giving 
up  their  lives,  in  a  spirit  of  uneasy  curiosity,  to 
fond  discussions  of  a  future  life  and  other  worlds 
are  not  living  in  the  spirit  of  EmersfDn,  and  to  my 
thinking  are  not  laying  the  stress  in  a  good  place. 
It  was,  on  the  whole,  a  wise  word  of  Thoreau,  and  an 
Emersonian  word,  —  "  One  world  at  a  time."  "  When 
I  talked  with  an  ardent  missionary,"  said  Emerson, 
"  and  pointed  out  to  him  that  his  creed  found  no  sup 
port  in  my  experience,  he  replied,  *  It  is  not  so  in  your 
experience,  but  is  so  in  the  other  world.'  I  answer  : 
'  Other  world  !  there  is  no  other  world.  God  is  one 
and  omnipresent ;  here  or  nowhere  is  the  whole  fact.' " 
It  is  no  question  of  the  soul's  eternal  nature  and 
immortal  life,  —  no  man's  faith  in  that  so  entire.  It 
is  a  rebuke  of  the  irreligious  blindness  that  does  not 
see  that  the  soul  is  immortal,  not  will  be,  and  that 
eternity  is  one. 

"  In  past  oracles  of  the  soul  the  understanding  seeks  to 
find  answers  to  sensual  questions,  and  undertakes  to  tell 
from  God  how  long  men  shall  exist,  what  their  hands 
shall  do,  and  who  shall  be  their  company,  adding  names 
and  dates  and  places.  .  .  .  But  we  must  pick  no  locks. 
We  must  check  this  low-  curiosity.  An  answer  in  words 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  283 

is  delusive ;  it  is  really  no  answer  to  the  questions  you 
ask.  Men  ask  concerning  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the 
employments  of  heaven,  the  estate  of  the  sinner,  and  so 
forth.  They  even  dream  that  Jesus  has  left  replies  to 
precisely  these  interrogatories.  Xever  a  moment  did  that 
sublime  spirit  speak  in  their  patois.  ...  It  was  left  to 
his  disciples  to  sever  duration  from  the  moral  elements, 
and  to  teach  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  a  doctrine, 
and  maintain  it  by  evidences.  The  moment  the  doctrine 
of  the  immortality  is  separately  taught,  man  is  already 
fallen.  .  .  .  These  questions  which  we  lust  to  ask  about 
the  future  are  a  confession  of  sin.  God  has  no  answer  for 
them.  ...  It  is  not  in  an  arbitrary  '  decree  of  God,'  but 
in  the  nature  of  man,  that  a  veil  shuts  down  on  the  facts 
of  to-morrow ;  for  the  soul  will  not  have  us  read  any 
other  cipher  than  that  of  cause  and  effect.  By  this  veil 
which  curtains  events  it  instructs  the  children  of  men  to 
live  in  to-day.  The  only  mode  of  obtaining  an  answer  to 
these  questions  of  the  senses  is  to  forego  all  low  curiosity, 
and,  accepting  the  tide  of  being  which  floats  us  into  the 
secret  of  Xature,  work  and  live,  work  and  live ;  and  all 
unawares  the  advancing  soul  has  built  and  forged  for 
itself  a  new  condition,  and  the  question  and  the  answer 
are  one." 

"  Why  should  I  hasten  to  solve  every  riddle  which  life 
offers  me  ?  I  am  well  assured  that  the  Questioner  who 
brings  me  so  many  problems  will  bring  the  answers  also 
in  due  time.  Very  rich,  very  potent,  very  cheerful  Giver 
that  he  is,  he  shall  have  it  all  his  own  way,  for  me." 

"  Of  immortality,  the  soul  when  well  employed  is  incu 
rious.  It  is  so  well,  that  it  is  sure  it  will  be  well.  It  asks 
no  questions  of  the  Supreme  Power." 


284  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Such,  slightly  and  inadequately  sketched,  is  Emer 
son's  view  of  the  moral  life  of  man.  My  friends,  it  is 
my  religion,  —  a  truth  sufficient  to  enable  me,  when 
I  am  faithful  to  it,  to  live  strongly  and  joyfully  ; 
a  truth,  I  believe,  by  which  any  soul  may  enter  any 
future  with  confidence  and  peace. 

Wickedness  may  fill  the  earth  and  manifold  cor 
ruptions  taint  society,  but  they  that  see  that  the  law 
of  the  universe  is  the  moral  law,  that  morality  is  the 
soul's  lawfulness  and  health  and  order,  will  be  para 
lyzed  by  no  thought  of  "  moral  interregnums."  The 
immoral  year  is  but  the  world's  diastole.  Tiberius 
is  Christianity's  gymnasium,  and  papal  Borgias  and 
Medicis  manure  the  Reformation.  Morality  is  sure, 
because  it  is  of  the  nature  of  things  ;  but  immorality 
is  depravity.  Crowd  the  cork  to  the  bottom,  but 
every  atom  is  crowded  up  forever  by  the  picture  it 
carries  of  the  sky.  Morality  has  far  deeper  founda 
tions  than  our  passing  purposes.  Reality  does  not 
humor  our  imaginings.  This  one  laments  this  oth 
er's  atheism,  as  though  his  atheism  cancelled  God. 
And  this  one  writes,  "  I  was,  but  am  not "  on  his 
tombstone,  heedless  of  the  smiles  of  the  stars  at  the 
fatuity  that  fails  to  see  that  only  an  /  am  has  any 
message.  So  fatuous  is  the  thought  that  the  uni 
verse  leaves  its  morality  to  accident.  "  The  con 
science  of  man,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  regenerated  as  is 
the  atmosphere,  so  that  society  cannot  be  debauched. 
The  health  which  we  call  virtue  is  an  equipoise  which 
easily  redresses  itself,  and  resembles  those  rocking- 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS.  285 

stones  which  a  child's  finger  can  move,  and  a  weight 
of  many  hundred  tons  cannot  overthrow."  Churches 
many  and  creeds  many  pass  away,  and  "  in  the  rapid 
decay  of  what  was  called  religion  timid  and  unthink 
ing  people  fancy  a  decay  of  the  hope  of  man ; "  but 
they  that  see  the  law  "  believe  that  man  need  not 
fear  the  want  of  religion,  because  they  know  his  re 
ligious  constitution,  —  that  he  must  rest  on  the  moral 
and  religious  sentiments,  as  the  motion  of  bodies  rests 
on  geometry."  f  "  As  soon  as  every  man  is  apprised  of 
the  Divine  Presence  within  his  own  mind,  —  is  ap 
prised  that  the  perfect  law  of  duty  corresponds  with 
the  laws  of  chemistry,  of  vegetation,  of  astronomy,  as 
face  to  face  in  a  glass;  that  the  basis  of  duty,  the 
order  of  society,  the  power  of  character,  the  wealth  of 
culture,  the  perfection  of  taste,  all  draw  their  essence 
from  this  moral  sentiment,  then  we  have  a  religion 
that  exalts,  that  commands  all  the  social  and  all  the 
private  action.' 


286  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


X. 
EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY. 

BY  MRS.  JULIA  WARD  HOWE. 

WHAT  is  society  ?  or,  if  it  comes  to  that,  what  was 
society  ?  In  the  first  place,  an  assemblage  of  human 
creatures  whose  humanity  consisted  largely  in  their 
power  of  discrimination  and  comparison  between  the 
various  objects  and  advantages  of  life.  Animals  have 
habits,  passions,  affections,  preferences,  reasonings. 
Man  must  have  always  been  able  to  compare  the  ob 
jects  of  these  with  a  standard  existing  in  his  own  mind, 
and  then  to  compare  them  with  each  other.  In  this 
comparison,  poor  and  rudimentary  as  it  must  once 
have  been,  the  greater  good  constantly  gained  upon 
the  lesser.  The  advantage  of  alliance  was  found  to  be 
greater  than  that  of  discord.  Law  was  recognized  as 
better  than  violence,  temperance  prevailed  over  ex 
cess,  industry  was  seen  to  be  more  productive  than 
rapine.  The  power  of  thought  asserted  its  right  to 
a  nobler  employment  than  the  devising  of  fables  for 
the  superstitious,  or  of  artifices  for  the  covetous  and 
ambitious.  And  so  by  slow  steps  we  come  from  pre 
historic  man  to  the  nineteenth  century,  and  to  that 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       287 

part  of  it  in  which  the  heaven  of  Xew  England 
was  bright  with  particular  stars.  "We  who  were  ac 
customed  to  the  presence  of  these  stars  in  the  social 
firmament  took  very  insufficient  note  of  them.  Which 
of  us  stops  to  rave  about  the  sunlight,  glorious  and 
wonderful  fact  though  it  be  ?  Take  it  away,  and  we 
recognize  its  constant  and  supreme  office.  While  we 
have  it,  our  life  and  it  are  so  at  one  that  we  cannot 
much  notice  it. 

Mr.  Emerson's  years  surpassed  by  nine  man's  three 
score  and  ten.  His  intellectual  activity  covers  the 
whole  period  intervening  between  his  early  manhood 
and  his  seventy-first  year.  Yet  I  cannot  find  in 
what  I  have  known  of  this  time  any  evidence  that 
the  community  at  large  felt  itself  either  richer  or 
safer  for  his  presence.  If  this  was  true  of  the  busi 
ness  world,  it  was  equally  true  of  the  world  of  fashion. 
If  I  remember  rightly,  there  were  many  years  of  his 
life  in  which  his  words  and  works  were  valued  by  a 
very  small  number  of  people.  Has  he  not  himself 
said,  turning  his  face  from  his  own  Boston, 

"  Goou-by,  proud  world  !  I  'm  going  home  ; 
Thou  art  not  my  friend,  and  I  'm  not  thine  "  ? 

The  next  strophe  may  tell  us  what  he  had  seen  there : 

"  Good-by  to  Flattery's  fawning  face  ; 
To  Grandeur  with  his  wise  grimace  ; 
To  upstart  Wealth's  averted  eye  ; 
To  supple  Office,  low  and  high  ; 
To  crowded  halls,  to  court  and  street, 
To  frozen  hearts  and  hasting  feet." 


288  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

And  a  little  further  on  he  says  :  — 

"  When  I  am  stretched  beneath  the  pines, 
Where  the  evening  star  so  holy  shines, 
I  laugh  at  the  lore  and  the  pride  of  man, 
At  the  sophist  schools,  and  the  learned  clan." 

Even  the  recognized  literary  men  of  the  time  paid 
him  little  attention.  The  elder  Dana,  in  those  days 
at  ]east,  would  have  classed  him  with  those  whom  he 
esteemed  as  eccentric  disturbers  of  peace  and  religion. 
C.  C.  Felton,  while  professor  of  Greek  at  Harvard, 
wrote  a  notice  of  one  of  his  books,  which  he  compared 
to  the  orange-peel  and  water  mentioned  by  Dickens's 
Little  Marchioness,  with  the  explanation  that,  "  If 
you  make  believe  very  much,  it  is  very  good." 

I  remember  having  been  sharply  called  to  account 
some  forty-five  years  ago  for  advising  an  acquaint 
ance  to  attend  the  first  course  of  lectures  which  he 
gave  in  New  York;  and  I  remember  thinking  that 
from  an  orthodox  point  of  view  I  had  been  a  little 
imprudent  in  so  doing.  In  those  days,  and  long 
after,  Cambridge  held  him  in  doubtful  and  super 
cilious  consideration.  The  world  of  fashion  only  in 
rare  instances  knew  enough  of  him  to  laugh  at  him. 
Of  course,  there  were  exceptions  to  this.  I  think  it 
must  have  been  in  1843  that  I  heard  of  his  having 
been  invited  after  one  of  his  lectures  in  Boston  to 
the  house  of  Mr.  Nathan  Appleton ;  and  the  friend 
who  mentioned  this  to  me  appeared  much  edified  at 
the  countenance  thereby  given  to  Mr.  Emerson. 

It  would  be  instructive   for  us  to  compare   Mr. 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       289 

Emerson's  attitude  toward  society  with  that  of  Mar 
garet  Fuller  in  the  days  in  which  each  had  a  position 
of  strangeness  and  novelty.  I  should  say  that  Mr. 
Emerson's  patient  and  cautious  nature  made  his  po 
sition  a  less  aggressive  one  than  that  of  his  brilliant 
contemporary.  Margaret's  eloquence,  which  gave  ex 
pression  to  the  quick  and  vehement  action  of  her 
mind,  was  less  favorable  to  the  formation  of  reserved 
judgment  than  was  Mr.  Emerson's  more  deliberate 
speech.  Eloquent  on  foot  Mr.  Emerson  was  rarely 
or  never.  The  glinfpses  of  his  genius  showed  him 
heights  to  be  built  up  to,  and  this  process  was  a  slow 
one.  I  remember  him  as  rather  averse  to  extempore 
addresses,  and  as  greatly  preferring  to  read  from  a 
manuscript.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  remember 
that  Margaret's  encounter  with  the  society  of  her 
youth  was  more  of  a  hand-to-hand  fight  than  Mr. 
Emerson  was  called  upon  to  maintain.  The  fact  of 
her  sex  aggravated  in  her  case  the  displeasure  which 
the  worshippers  of  custom  always  visit  upon  inno 
vators.  In  addition  to  this,  a  certain  quality  in  her, 
difficult  to  define,  often  provoked  hostility  in  those 
who  knew  her  slightly,  or  not  at  all.  Her  critical 
attitude,  her  authoritative  manner,  and  her  somewhat 
novel  method  of  imparting  what  she  knew,  brought 
upon  her  a  wrath  and  ridicule  which  Mr.  Emerson 
was  not  likely  to  encounter.  Eor  his  prime  abord,  on 
the  contrary,  had  in  it  nothing  of  challenge  or  defi 
ance.  A  solemn  suavity,  saved  by  an  overspreading 
cheerfulness,  an  eye  in  which  severity  of  observation 

19 


290  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

and  kindliness  of  judgment  were  strangely  blended, 
—  these  traits  of  person  and  of  character  made  Mr. 
Emerson's  relations  with  those  around  him  smooth  at 
the  start ;  and  the  severe  sentences  which  he  some 
times  fulminated  took  by  surprise  those  who  looked 
into  his  genial  countenance,  and  who  heard  those 
uncompromising  rebukes  through  the  silver  medium 
of  his  voice. 

I  cannot  follow  here  the  steps  by  which  he  came 
to  stand  where  we  all  remember  him,  in  conceded 
eminence,  as  first  in  rank  among  our  men  of  letters. 
We  all  know  that  each  of  these  steps  was  brave, 
true,  and  independent.  Clad  in  his  wonderful  tem 
perament  as  in  a  seraph's  golden  armor,  Mr.  Emerson 
reviewed  the  forces  of  his  time,  showing  neither  fear 
nor  favor  to  what  he  found  amiss.  Nothing  did  he 
set  down  in  malice,  nor  aught  extenuate.  A  single 
figure  was  he  in  his  lone  crusade;  for  though  the  field 
was  full  of  brave  fighters,  no  one  of  them  followed  his 
device.  What  could  give  one  man  the  courage  to  ex 
pose  so  many  shams,  ignore  so  many  false  pretensions, 
assert  so  many  unflattering  convictions  ?  His  knowl 
edge  of  the  value  of  what  he  had  to  give,  and  his 
determination  to  give  it. 

I  remember  as  if  it  were  a  thing  of  yesterday 
the  noble  ring  and  scope  of  Mr.  Emerson's  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Oration,  delivered  in  the  year  1837.  What 
inspiration  must  his  words  have  carried  with  them 
to  those  who  stood  in  his  serene  presence,  and  who 
saw  in  his  face  the  full  beaming  of  his  thought ! 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.        291 

To  me,  at  that  time  a  youthful  scorner  of  much  that 
I  did  not  understand,  it  sounded  a  new  bugle-call, 
opened  a  new  way.  And  I  cannot  but  admire  as  a 
dispensation  of  Providence  the  gift  of  art  and  imagi 
nation  through  which  the  speaker  s  ingrained  purity 
of  soul  was  carried  into  the  consciousness  of  all  who 
heard  him,  and  gave  its  tone  to  the  hour,  single  and 
never  to  be  forgotten. 

The  tardiness  of  Mr.  Emerson's  attainment  of  the 
recognition  to  which  he  was  entitled  is  easily  ex 
plained  by  the  fact  that  he,  like  some  of  his  peers, 
had  to  teach  a  new  valuation  to  the  community  which 
assumed  to  judge  him.  Certain  forms  of  belief,  of 
reasoning,  of  expression,  had  in  the  minds  of  men 
become  so  hardened  out  of  second  nature  into  second 
death,  that  the  fossilized  community  had  become  in 
capable  of  entertaining  a  novelty  in  either  kind.  To 
it  religion  meant  a  catechism  and  a  creed,  morality 
a  bulwark  of  uncharities,  art  a  catalogue  of  technical 
terms. 

Now,  Mr.  Emerson  was  not  the  only  person  sent 
to  blow  up  these  coral  reefs;  but  he  wrought  at  them 
alone,  because  his  manner  of  work  was,  above  all, 
individual.  He  held  to  it,  moreover,  never  borrowing 
Parker's  hammer,  nor  Phillips's  flashing  artillery. 
His  was  the  secret  of  a  subtle  solvent  which  changed 
enmity  into  friendship,  and  the  titter  of  ridicule  into 
the  paean  of  manly  praise.  Not  the  secret  of  base 
compliance  this,  but  the  finding  of  that  deepest  truth 
within  whose  domain  all  must  agree. 


292  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

The  perfect  politeness  of  Mr.  Emerson's  attitude  in 
regard  to  society  appears  as  much  in  what  is  remem 
bered  of  his  life  as  in  his  works.  A  great  element  of 
caution,  a  great  sensitiveness  to  the  rights  and  claims 
of  others,  sometimes  made  him  a  waiter  where  others 
dashed  headlong  into  the  fight.  When  he  distinctly 
saw  what  to  aim  at,  a  single  shaft  from  his  bow  flew 
far  and  hit  the  mark.  He  was,  I  should  think,  in 
stinctively  averse  to  all  strife,  delighting  above  all 
in  the  philosophic  coup-d'wil  which  takes  account  of 
individual  shortcomings  only  to  lose  sight  of  them  inj 
the  final  harmony.  Keeping  in  view  this  determining 
characteristic  of  his  mind,  we  must  the  more  admire 
the  unsparing  frankness  of  his  satire. 

There  are  some  rude  truths  which  it  is  polite  to 
utter,  just  as  it  would  be  polite  to  shake  one's  grand 
father  if  he  were  sleeping  to  his  hurt.  The  utterance 
of  these  truths  was  never  shirked  by  Mr.  Emerson ; 
but  his  manner  of  imparting  them  rather  encouraged 
those  who  were  in  error  to  come  out  of  it,  than  con 
demned  them  to  abide  in  their  sins  and  await  their 
punishment. 

Forces,  indeed,  were  not  powers,  in  his  view ;  and 
while  he  made  due  account  of  them,  he  did  not  unduly 
revere  them.  "  The  powers  that  be  "  he  did  not  find 
in  the  rich  merchants  and  haughty  dames  who  repre 
sented  wealth  and  social  pretension,  but  in  men  and  i 
women  of  commanding  rnind  and  merit. 

I  do  not  remember  him  in  the  pulpit,  but  I  think 
that,  once  out  of  it,  he  eyed  it  askance.  Not  the 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       293 

pulpit  of  Charming  and  Parker,  but  that  from  which  a 
learned  ignorance  sought  to  impose  its  limits,  —  from 
which  a  surface  morality  forbade  the  digging  of  a 
deeper  well.  I  once  heard  him  say,  in  a  Sunday 
discourse,  that  he  entered  the  pulpit  somewhat  un 
willingly,  because  it  contained  traditions  which  he 
neither  wished  to  accept  nor  to  reject.  Many  of 
these  have  melted  away  since  that  time.  They  were 
the  prescriptions  of  an  authority  which  then  admitted 
neither  question  nor  examination,  but  which  has  since 
learned  to  thrive  upon  both. 

Mr.  Emerson's  power  of  critical  appreciation  is  no 
where  more  fully  shown  than  in  his  "English  Traits." 
From  the  studious  and  laborious  seclusion  of  his 
Concord  home  he  went,  in  1847,  to  the  world's  me 
tropolis,  —  to  London  and  its  kindred  cities.  Eecog- 
nition  he  surely  found  there,  and  of  the  best.  The 
voyage  was  undertaken  by  the  invitation  of  a  number 
of  associations  much  like  our  own  lecture  lyceums. 
The  book  tells  us  nothing  of  the  success  of  the  lec 
tures  which  Mr.  Emerson  delivered  in  various  towns 
of  Great  Britain,  but  we  do  not  need  to  learn  from  it 
that  his  reputation  and  position  at  once  introduced 
him  to  all  that  is  best  and  most  substantial  in  Eng 
lish  society.  The  book  startles  us  by  its  trenchant 
statements,  which  cut  "  deep  down  the  middle "  of 
English  character.  It  is  no  less  remarkable  for  the 
grasp  and  comprehension  with  which  it  presents  the 
strong  and  redeeming  points  of  the  race.  The  first 
feature  is  illustrated  in  passages  like  the  following, 


294  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

which  is  not  over-gratifying  to  those  who  claim  that 
their  families  came  over  with  the  Conqueror :  — 

"  Twenty  thousand  thieves  landed  at  Hastings.  These 
founders  of  the  House  of  Lords  were  greedy  and  ferocious 
dragoons,  sons  of  greedy  and  ferocious  pirates.  They  were 
all  alike.  They  took  everything  they  could  carry,  they 
burned,  harried,  violated,  tortured,  and  killed.  Such,  how 
ever,  is  the  illusion  of  antiquity  and  wealth,  that  decent 
and  dignified  men,  now  existing,  boast  their  descent  from 
those  filthy  thieves." 

Mr.  Emerson  finds  the  English  "led  by  a  coarse 
logic  to  worship  wealth  as  the  absolute  test  and  cri 
terion  of  merit."  He  finds  them  much  given  also 
to  the  service  of  the  god  Brag,  whom  he  charitably 
recognizes  as  an  ancient  Norse  deity.  He  considers 
them  as  preserved  from  over-quickness  of  judgment 
by  the  mask  of  "  a  certain  saving  stupidity."  On 
the  other  hand,  he  says :  "  There  is  an  English  hero 
superior  to  the  French,  the  German,  the  Italian,  or 
the  Greek.  When  he  is  brought  to  the  strife  with 
fate,  he  sacrifices  a  richer  material  possession,  and 
on  more  purely  metaphysical  grounds.  On  deliberate 
choice,  and  from  grounds  of  character,  he  has  elected 
his  part  to  live  and  die  for,  and  dies  with  grandeur. 
This  race  has  added  new  elements  to  humanity,  and 
has  a  deeper  root  in  the  world."  Well  does  he  re 
mark  that  the  English  have  great  range  of  scale,  from 
ferocity  to  exquisite  refinement. 

Since  the  days  in  which  this  book  was  written,  the 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       295 

attitude  of  Great  Britain  to  the  rest  of  the  world 
has  changed,  not  altogether  for  the  better.  She  then 
appeared  as  the  uncompromising  foe  of  slavery :  she 
has  since  become  its  apologist.  A  republican  mon 
archy  then,  she  has  since  appeared  as  an  imperial 
autocracy. 

We  need  not,  for  all  this,  suppose  the  values  of  the 
race  to  be  lost.  They  still  exist,  and  will  assert 
themselves.  But  in  the  struggle  and  change  of 
society  the  least  worthy  elements  have  attained  a 
prominence  which  for  the  time  gives  to  the  very 
name  "  English "  a  significance  very  different  from, 
that  which  Mr.  Emerson  so  cordially  recognizes  in 
the  passage  last  quoted.  The  complex  elements  of 
the  nationality  make  themselves  felt,  despite  the  long 
effort  at  assimilation.  The  fatality  of  its  history  per 
severes,  and  every  unrighteous  conquest  is  called  in 
question,  though  the  wrongs  inflicted  have  seemed 
to  sleep  the  sleep  of  death  for  centuries.  Is  not  Jus 
tice,  after  all,  the  enchanted  princess  who  lies  spell 
bound  in  her  bower  until  the  true  knight  finds  his 
way  to  her  and  bears  her  forth  in  his  strong  arms, 
conquering  and"  to  conquer  ? 

Power  is  changing  hands  in  the  Island  Empire, 
and  the  cherished  immunities  from  change  and  dis 
turbance  are  enjoyed  no  longer.  There,  as  elsewhere, 
the  nineteenth  century  will  do  its  utmost  work  be 
fore  it  departs,  and  the  people  will  assert  their  will 
and  pleasure  in  a  form  neither  to  be  suppressed  nor 
ignored. 


296  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Since  the  days  of  which  Mr.  Emerson  wrote,  more 
over,  the  precedence  which  he  gives  to  English  edu 
cation,  authorship,  and  scholarship  is  no  longer  to  be 
conceded.  American  education  is  found  to  develop 
the  faculties  more  fully  than  does  the  drill  of  Oxford 
or  Cambridge.  The  extremely  limited  horizon  of 
English  life  produces  a  national  short-sightedness 
which  is  unhappily  reproduced  among  us  by  select 
youths  whose  parents  view  everything  through  the 
craze  of  a  false  social  ambition,  and  send  them  abroad, 
ostensibly  to  make  gentlemen  of  them,  but  really  to 
train  honest  republican  natures  to  the  fashion  of  a 
pseudo-aristocracy. 

Of  the  English  aristocracy  of  forty  years  ago  Mr. 
Emerson  certainly  saw  all  the  good  points.  He 
credits  them  with  manners  whose  charm  and  value 
take  the  place  of  the  thought  of  which  they  show 
small  traces.  "  'T  is  wonderful,"  he  says,  "  how  much 
talent  runs  into  manners :  nowhere  and  never  so 
much  as  in  England."  He  saw  those  fine  people 
where  they  appear  best,  —  at  home.  Their  contempt 
for  other  nations  leads  them  to  be  less  regardful  of 
the  claims  of  others  on  other  soil  than  their  own. 
As  I  have  met  them,  on  the  Eastern  Continent  and 
on  the  Western,  I  should  call  politeness  the  exception, 
rather  than  the  rule,  among  them. 

It  is  not  perhaps  as  difficult  to  be  polite  in  cere 
monious  company,  which  imposes  its  own  rules,  as  in 
the  freedom  and  isolation  of  country  life.  How  Mr. 
Emerson  excelled  as  a  country  host  and  as  a  country 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       297 

neighbor  is  well  known  in  this  place.  Too  sorrowful 
is  the  thought  of  the  bread  that  will  be  broken  with 
him  no  more.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  it.  But  of  his 
home-content  he  has  left  us  glimpses  which  have  in 
them  a  great  charm :  — 

"Because  I  was  content  with  these  poor  fields, 
Low,  open  meads,  slender  and  sluggish  streams, 
And  found  a  home  in  haunts  which  others  scorned, 
The  partial  wood-gods  overpaid  my  love, 
And  granted  me  the  freedom  of  their  state. 

And,  chiefest  prize,  found  I  true  liberty 

In  the  glad  home  plain-dealing  Xature  gave. 

The  polite  found  me  impolite  ;  the  great 

"Would  mortify  me,  but  in  vain  ;  for  still 

I  am  a  willow  of  the  wilderness, 

Loving  the  wind  that  bent  me.     All  my  hurts 

My  garden  spade  can  heal." 

I  quote  these  lines,  as  you  will  all  know,  from  a 
poem  in  Mr.  Emerson's  first  volume  of  verse.  Few 
books,  it  seems  to  me,  so  fully  as  this  reveal  the 
character  and  habitual  thought  of  the  writer.  The 
finest  of  the  poems  may  aptly  be  termed  "  Medita 
tions  in  Verse."  They  are  pictures,  each  of  a  dis 
tinct  cycle  of  thought,  in  which  Courage  asks  the 
question  which  Faith  and  Imagination  beautifully  an 
swer.  Such  are,  among  many  others,  "  The  Sphinx," 
"Each  and  All,"  and,  above  all,  "The  Problem," 
sentences  of  which  have  now  become  a  part  of  Eng 
lish  speech.  These  poems  have  not  the  flat  subjec 
tivity  of  one  who,  in  every  scene,  sees  himself  first, 
and  other  things  long  after,  if  at  all.  They  pour 


298  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

forth  no  unhappy  nor  unholy  passion.  They  reveal 
the  fair  soul  to  us  without  violating  its  reserves,  rapt 
as  it  is  in  the  contemplation  of  life's  sublime  mys 
teries.  A  charm  of  unconsciousness  is  in  them.  The 
poet  sings  to  us  with  thoughts  beyond  his  song.  The 
spell  of  rhythm  soothes  the  Cerberus  of  his  vigilant 
caution.  What  view  of  sin  was  ever  more  polite 
than  this  ?  — 

"  The  fiend  that  man  harries 

Is  love  of  the  Best  ; 
Yawns  the  pit  of  the  Dragon 
Lit  by  rays  from  the  Blest. 


"  Pride  ruined  the  angels, 

Their  shame  them  restores  ; 
And  the  joy  that  is  sweetest 
Lurks  in  stings  of  remorse." 

Polite,  too,  is  Mr.  Emerson  in  his  extreme  agony,  of 
which  the  well-known  "  Threnody  "  is  the  utterance. 
Nothing  that  has  been  said  of  this  poem  seems  to  me 
to  express  fully  its  unique  merit.  It  calls  up  the  joys 
and  beauties  which  have  proved  evanescent,  sparing 
not  one  dear  domestic  recollection,  —  not  one  of  the 
beautiful  traits  of  his  dead  child.  But  it  shows  the 
mortal  fixed  in  immortality,  and  the  deep  serene 
persuasion  which  smiles  beyond  tears,  and  which 

carries  him 

"  Past  the  blasphemy  of  grief," 

and  shows  him  that 

"  Death,  with  solving  rite, 
Pours  finite  into  infinite." 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.        299 

Death,  or  the  power  that  lies  behind  it,  has  changed 
his  wondrous  flower  into  a  wondrous  gem,  his  rose 
into  a  ruby,  with  the  rose's  perfume.  And  he  bids 
himself 

"  Eevere  the  Maker  ;  fetch  thine  eye 
Up  to  his  style,  and  manners  of  the  sky." 

The  indignation  which  Mr.  Emerson  felt  at  the  great 
•wrongs  which  have  disgraced  our  social  and  political 
history  was  expressed  in  a  calm  and  concentrated 
form,  with  touches  of  deep  philosophic  suggestion, 
which  still  speak  to  us  like  oracles.  We  find  a 
striking  instance  of  this  in  the  ode  inscribed  to 
William  Henry  Channing,  and  written  in  the  days 
of  the  Mexican  War  :  — 

"  Who  is  he  that  prates 
Of  the  culture  of  mankind, 
Of  better  arts  and  life  ? 
Go,  blind  worm,  go, 
Behold  the  famous  States 
Harrying  Mexico 
"With  rifle  and  with  knife  !  " 

How  is  this  for  satire  ?  — 

"  The  God  who  made  New  Hampshire 
Taunted  the  lofty  land 
With  little  men  ;  — 
Small  bat  and  wren 
House  in  the  oak  :  — 
If  earth-fire  cleave 

The  upheaved  land,  and  bury  the  folk, 
The  Southern  crocodile  would  grieve  !  " 


300  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

And  the  lesson  of  all  this,  what  is  it  ?  — 

"  Let  man  serve  law  for  man  ; 
Live  for  friendship,  live  for  love, 
For  truth's  and  harmony's  behoof  ; 
The  State  may  follow  how  it  can, 
As  Olympus  follows  Jove." 

But  this  indignation  reached  its  highest  expression 
in  the  poems  called  "  Voluntaries,"  written  either 
during  the  war  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  or  just 
before,  and  in  the  "Boston  Hymn,"  whose  brave  music 
so  fitly  accompanied  Abraham  Lincoln's  mandate  of 
emancipation  to  the  colored  race  in  America. 

The  poem  on  "  Tact,"  in  the  first  volume,  illus 
trates  Mr.  Emerson's  appreciation  of  the  importance 
of  that  quality  in  all  relations  and  in  all  successes. 
But  he  himself  had  a  finer  tact  than  that  which 
these  verses  recognize.  His  was  not  that  ready  ad 
dress  which  takes  advantage  of  every  favoring  circum 
stance  in  order  to  carry  personal  aims,  but  that  fine 
feeling  which  weighs  and  ponders,  and  is  right. 

In  what  I  am  trying  to  say,  I  may  not  hit  pre 
cisely  the  mark  set  up  for  me  in  my  present  task, 
which  is  to  speak  of  Mr.  Emerson  in  his  relation  to 
society.  With  all  respect  to  this  philosophic  assem 
blage,  I  think  that  some  among  you  may  expect  to 
hear  something  concerning  our  great  friend's  appear 
ance  at  balls  and  parties,  and  his  success  in  the  light 
skirmishing  which  occupies  the  border  between  lit 
erary  and  commonplace  society.  And  here,  if  nowhere 
else,  the  example  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  may  help 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.        301 

me.  He  began  his  well-known  lecture  by  the  asser 
tion  that  Mr.  Emerson  was  neither  a  great  writer  nor 
a  great  poet.  I  may  as  aptly  say  that  he  was  neither 
a  leader  of  the  German,  nor  a  tailor's  model,  nor  yet 
the  pet  lion  of  any  social  menagerie.  I  must  also 
confess  that  in  the  haunts  of  high  fashion  I  never,  to 
my  knowledge,  met  either  with  him  or  with  his  like. 
I  have  seen  him  at  dinners,  —  have  entertained  him 
myself  after  that  manner.  Xo  one  here  will  question 
the  perfect  urbanity  of  his  manners,  —  fit  expression 
of  the  elegance  of  his  nature.  As  I  remember,  he 
was  not  a  free  talker,  but  was  an  attentive  listener. 
He  was  often  very  patient  of  extreme  loquacity  in 
others,  but  stood  ready  to  redeem  the  conversation 
by  some  apt  word,  —  a  helper  in  it,  not  a  leader.  I 
think  that  he  dreaded  and  disliked  over-emphasis, 
even  in  affirming  the  most  important  truths ;  and 
am  sure  that  he  would  have  justified  Talleyrand's 
pregnant  saying,  —  Point  de  zele. 

Most  of  us  easily  run  into  panegyric  when  speak 
ing  of  a  man  so  eminent  and  so  faultless  as  Mr. 
Emerson.  I  confess  that  for  my  part  I  fear  more 
my  own  insufficiency  in  praising  than  in  criticising 
him  ;  that  is,  I  fear  more  to  miss  the  deeper  merit 
of  his  work  than  to  overlook  the  surface  traits  in  it 
which  may  admit  of  question,  and  the  liberty  uni 
versally  conceded  in  the  saying,  —  DC  gmtibus  non 
disputandum  est. 

I  have  sometimes  differed  from  Mr.  Emerson  on 
points  both  of  feeling  and  opinion.  I  think  that  the 


302  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

glamour  of  Eastern  thought  sometimes  overcame  his 
wiser  judgment,  and  that  his  belief  in  the  absolute 
logic  of  organization  occasionally  led  him  to  utter 
sayings  that  savored  of  fatalism.  This,  I  think,  was 
but  a  play  of  his  mind,  from  which  his  sternly  Puri 
tan  conscience  quickly  recalled  him.  Yet  I  have  felt 
this  vein  in  him  as  one  which  I  could  not  follow. 
I  did  not  agree  with  him,  either,  in  wishing  that  the 
meetings  of  the  Boston  Eadical  Club  should  not  be 
reported  in  the  papers.  While  gladly  conceding  that 
a  more  intimate  liberty  of  communion  might  have 
been  enjoyed  with  no  such  result  in  view,  I  thought, 
and  still  think,  that  the  earnest  encounter  of  thought 
ful  oppositions,  which  gave  so  much  interest  to  the 
meetings  of  the  Club,  was  too  instructive  and  useful 
to  be  withheld  from  the  general  public. 

Yet  we  must  give  Mr.  Emerson  the  praise  which 
belongs  to  a  man  of  faultless  intention,  without  de 
fect  of  temper  or  of  passion.  He  was,  through  some 
dispensation  of  grace,  exempt  from  some  of  the  dark 
est  agonies  of  human  nature.  He  had  no  brutal  im 
pulses  to  conquer,  no  raging  appetite  to  contend  with. 
He  knew,  from  the  first,  the  victory  of  good  over 
evil ;  and  when  he  told  me,  to  my  childish  amaze 
ment,  that  the  angel  must  always  be  stronger  than 
the  demon,  he  gave  utterance  to  a  thought  most  fa 
miliar  to  him,  though  at  the  time  new  to  me. 

Mysterious  is  this  inequality  of  life,  by  which  one 
thus  enters  the  field  armed  with  the  talisman  of  vie- 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.        303 

tory,  while  the  contending  ranks  around  him  struggle 
and  bleed  to  achieve  it.  When  all  philosophies,  all 
religions,  have  done  their  best,  this  "  why "  still  re 
mains  without  its  "  wherefore." 

I  suppose  that  Dean  Swift  had  in  his  mind  the 
contrast  between  the  great  man  and  the  average  one 
when  he  wrote  his  humorous  tale  of  Liliput.  This 
contrast  was  probably  greater  in  his  time  and  region 
than  in  the  Xew  England  of  Mr.  Emerson's  earlier 
life.  And  still,  when  one  thinks  of  him  in  his  study 
at  Concord,  and  of  the  soi-disant  society  of  that  time, 
one  does  not  wonder  that  the  little  creatures  so  poorly 
understood  the  great  man.  Fortunate  for  them  was 
it  that  he  had  a  higher  office  than  to  satirize  them, 
or  by  any  lofty  gymnastic  to  illustrate  the  difference 
between  his  proportions  and  theirs.  From  that  great 
soul  of  his  the  multitude  were  to  be  fed  and  nour 
ished.  And  well  may  it  be  written  that  "  he  gave 
them  bread  from  heaven."  For  in  a  certain  divine 
field  of  culture  lie  gathered  and  winnowed  the 
choicest  grain.  The  spirit  of  antiquity  was  in  it, 
and  the  life  of  the  present  and  future.  These  do, 
indeed,  literally  meet  in  the  seed  which  we  sow  in 
the  furrows.  But  this  bread  with  which  Mr.  Emer 
son  fed  the  generations  of  his  time  had  in  it  such 
values  as  only  the  highest  powers  of  thought  could 
perceive,  realize,  and  transmit.  The  old  historic  rivers 
spoke  to  him,  —  Xilus,  Strymon,  Xanthus,  Kephisus, 
Padus,  and  Tiber.  Poets  and  philosophers  said  sooth 


304  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

to  him.  He  saw  the  unity  in  their  multiplicity,  the 
harmony  of  their  difference,  and  knew  that  the  secret 
of  the  heroic  and  beautiful  is  always  the  same,  and 
always  unutterable. 

From  these  rich  studies  he  spoke  to  us.  He  gave 
us  the  refined  quintessence  of  their  elements.  Yet 
he  gave  us  not  Homer,  nor  Plato,  nor  Hermes,  nor 
Kant,  but  a  woven  web  in  which  their  imperishable 
beauties  were  brought  together,  sealed  by  a  beauty 
all  his  own. 

The  word  "  clubable  "  is,  I  believe,  of  English  origin. 
Would  one  have  supposed  it  likely  to  apply  to  Mr. 
\  Emerson  ?  It  did,  I  think.  He  was  clubable  ;  that 
jis,  capable  of  enjoying  a  mixed  company  gathered 
with  a  fixed  object.  From  some  of  his  writings  one 
might  have  formed  a  different  opinion  of  him.  It 
might  have  appeared  as  if  isolation  had  been  an  essen 
tial  condition  of  his  appearing ;  as  if  one  who  had 
so  distinct  a  doctrine  to  teach  might  have  found  his 
office  incompatible  with  the  encounters  of  common 
intercourse.  I  could  name,  though  I  will  not,  cer 
tain  clubs  which  would  not  have  been  at  all  to  his 
taste,  —  centres  of  vapid  pretension  and  of  fashion 
able  gossip.  To  imagine  him  in  such  surroundings 
is  profane ;  but  where  two  or  three  or  more  were 
gathered  together  in  the  name  of  any  high  object, 
he  was  likely  to  be  among  them  and  at  home  with 
them.  All  of  us  remember  him  in  the  sittings  of 
the  Kadical  Club.  He  has  often  visited  the  New 
England  Women's  Club,  and  has  given  his  voice  as 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       305 

well  as  his  presence  to  make  its  occasions  worthy. 
A  kindred  gathering  of  young  damosels,  the  Satur 
day  Morning  Club,  has  more  than  once  been  honored 
by  his  ministration.  The  club  of  worthies  who  for 
many  years  have  dined  together  on  the  last  Saturday 
of  every  month  was,  I  think,  a  favorite  institution  of 
his.  Xever  having  been  at  one  of  those  dinners,  I 
cannot  tell  you  what  part  he  took  in  the  accompany 
ing  conversation ;  but  I  can  in  my  mind  picture 
him  as  seated  between  Agassiz  and  Longfellow,  with 
other  illustrious  people  who  are  now  present  with 
us  only  in  recollection. 

Mr.  Emerson's  treatment  of  "the  comic"  in  his 
work  entitled  "  Letters  and  Social  Aims  "  shows  that 
he  was  fully  aware  of  its  importance  in  human 
affairs.  I  remember  very  rarely  to  have  seen  him 
moved  to  laughter ;  and  when  some  touch  of  his  fine 
humor  thrilled  his  audience,  and  brought  a  pleasant 
ripple  to  the  surface,  I  cannot  remember  that  his 
countenance  underwent  any  change.  The  broad  grin 
which  is  nowadays  so  much  in  fashion  would,  I 
think,  have  appeared  to  him  a  pitiable  symptom. 
The  nearest  approach  to  absolute  fun  that  I  can 
recall  in  connection  with  him  was  his  reading  of  a 
piece  called  "  The  Old  Cove,"  which  some  of  you  may 
remember.  He  read  it  in  his  own  parlor,  at  the 
request  of  one  of  his  daughters,  and  did  not  neglect 
one  of  its  humorous  points. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  the  anecdote  which  rep 
resents  him  as  having  gone  with  Margaret  Fuller  to 


306  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

see  Fanny  Elsler  dance.  "  Margaret,  this  is  moral 
ity."  "  Waldo,  this  is  religion."  I  should  be  glad  to 
know  whether  there  is  any  foundation  for  the  story. 
A  much-esteemed  English  friend  once  told  me  that 
the  subject  of  such  an  anecdote  should  not  spoil  it 
by  denying  its  truth.  He  quoted  a  well-known  anec 
dote  about  Sydney  Smith,  and  said  :  Landseer  told 
me  that  when  they  met,  after  it  had  been  put  in  cir 
culation,  Sydney  Smith  said  to  Landseer,  "  The  story 
is  good ;  we  had  better  not  spoil  it." 

With  all  that  we  owe  in  various  ways  to  Mr. 
Emerson,  I  feel  most  to  thank  him  for  his  concern 
in  the  common  life  of  humanity.  With  a  refinement 
of  taste  which  bordered  upon  the  hypercritical,  how 
loyal  was  he  to  the  rights  and  dignities  of  the  mil 
lion.  Horace  said :  Odi  profanum  vulgus  et  arceo. 
But  Mr.  Emerson,  as  I  remember  him,  was  concerned 
for  the  least  of  those  vulgar  facts  called  common 
men  and  women.  No  claim  did  he  make  to  a  life 
apart  from  his  fellows.  His  interpretation  of  life  — 
his  and  theirs  —  was  heroic,  but  also  sound  and 
simple.  He  spoke  to  ordinary  lecture  audiences,  as 
well  as  to  special  ones  of  his  own  ;  to  both  with  the 
same  grace  and  with  the  same  patience.  I  think 
he  loved  homely  illustrations,  and  the  smell  of  earth 
and  labor.  I  remember  a  lecture  in  which  he  spoke 
of  the  recent  purchase  of  Neander's  library  by  a  West 
ern  college,  made  upon  the  principle,  he  said,  "  that 
the  longest  pole  takes  the  persimmon."  The  demo 
cratic  soul  which  utters  itself  here  and  there  through- 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.       307 

out  his  prose  and  his  poetry  reached  its  culmination 
in  such  lines  as  these  :  — 

"Who  is  the  master  ?    The  slave  is  master, 
And  always  was.     Pay  him." 

1  have  several  times  been  Mr.  Emerson's  guest 
The  first  time  was  on  the  occasion  of  an  Antislavery 
tea-party  which  was  given  in  Concord  somewhere  in 
the  fifties.  Mr.  Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips  were 
the  principal  speakers  at  this  meeting,  and  were  in 
vited,  as  I  was,  to  stay  at  the  Emerson  house.  The 
next  day  some  hours  intervened  between  our  break 
fast  and  the  time  of  leaving  for  Boston,  and  I  'remem 
ber  that  we  passed  these  hours  with  Mr.  Emerson  in 
his  library,  and  that  the  conversation  was  most  easy 
and  delightful.  I  once  asked  Mr.  Emerson's  permis 
sion  to  bring  a  European  friend  of  mine  to  his  house. 
This  permission  was  graciously  given,  and  very  gladly 
improved.  Our  host  knew  how  to  grant  a  favor  as  if 
he  had  been  receiving  one. 

Years  after  this  time  I  had  occasion  to  attend  a 
Woman  Suffrage  Convention  held  in  Concord,  and 
was  fortunately  appointed  to  visit  the  same  hospi 
table  house,  which  had  been  burned  and  rebuilt  since 
I  had  last  seen  it.  The  evening  was  inclement,  and 
in  a  comfortless  and  dripping  state  I  arrived  at 
the  Emerson  mansion.  Mr.  Emerson  immediately 
brought  me  a  glass  of  wine ;  and  when  Mrs.  Emerson, 
coming  in  a  little  later,  said,  "  I  am  going  to  give 
Mrs.  Howe  something  to  eat,"  her  husband  replied, 


308  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"That's  a  good  girl,  Queenie,  that 's  a  good  girl!" 
with  a  heartiness  not  easily  to  be  forgotten. 

I  have  spoken  of  Mr.  Emerson  as  a  critic  and 
teacher  of  society.  I  would  also  speak  of  him  as  an 
exemplar.  In  an  age  in  which  dead  statutes  ruled 
the  land,  he  lifted  a  courageous  voice  proclaiming  the 
holy  laws  whose  spirit  underlies  the  dead  letter  of 
prescription.  When  Justice  was  inelegant  and  un 
acceptable  the  whole  world  over,  he  pointed  to  her 
ermine,  and  said,  "  It  is  ermine  still."  When  wild 
crowds  shrieked,  raged,  and  hooted  against  the  oppo 
nents  of  human  slavery,  he  answered  the  rude  sym 
phony  with  the  laughter  of  the  gods.  In  a  time  full 
of  personal  pretension,  his  poise  of  modest  dignity 
rebuked  the  fantastic  and  shamed  the  grovelling. 
Nobility  was  in  his  walk,  his  word,  his  every  gesture. 
What  an  assurance  did  we  feel  in  company  of  which 
he  made  a  part !  Nothing  unworthy  would  dare  to 
show  itself  in  his  presence.  Vulgarity  of  rustic  or  of 
millionnaire  would  retire  to  the  background  before 
him.  The  wonderful  eye,  the  wonderful  smile,  not 
only  rebuked  them,  but  cast  them  out. 

The  feminine  follies  which  are  so  intangible  yet 
so  powerful,  at  least  as  withes  and  nets  are  powerful, 
to  entangle  arid  detain,  —  how  well  he  understood 
them  !  How  delicately  he  unravelled  them,  knowing 
the  true  womanhood  as  few  know  it,  despite  the 
pseudo-feminine  caricatures  in  which  fools  of  both 
sexes  delight !  He  spoke  for  Woman  Suffrage  more 
than  once  with  sober  weight  and  earnestness.  The 


EMERSON'S  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY.        309 

character  and  intelligence  of  the  women  who  ask  for 
it  impressed  him  with  the  belief  that  the  time  for  it 
had  come.  Mr.  Parkman  and  a  good  many  with  him 
find  a  number  of  women  to  be  despicable  in  character 
and  intelligence  because  they  believe  in  their  right  to 
the  franchise.  Mr.  Emerson  considered  these  women 
as  of  a  rank  to  commend  any  views  concerning  their 
own  sex  which  they  might  adopt,  and  this  one  among 
the  number. 

And  now  let  me  ask  one  question.  What  ought  I 
to  be  able  to  tell  you  about  Mr.  Emerson,  you  here 
in  Concord,  who  so  long  enjoyed  his  inspiriting  and 
delightful  presence  ?  The  only  thing  that  I  can  sup 
ply  is  the  more  distant  view  of  what  was  so  near  as 
well  as  so  dear  to  you.  You  may  say  to  me :  "  We 
know  him  in  his  home,  and  in  his  home  village, 
where  the  grass  could  not  grow  without  him.  How 
did  he  look  outside  these  familiar  bounds  ?  How 
did  our  star  shine  among  the  world's  great  constella 
tions  ? "  And  I  can  reply,  "  He  shone  always  with 
his  own  peculiar  lustre,  calm  and  radiant."  Xeed  I 
say  that  he  still  so  shines  ?  So  much  of  his  thought 
and  life  was  cast  in  forms  of  immortal  beauty,  that 
it  endures  and  will  endure,  for  generations  that  never 
heard  his  voice  nor  saw  his  smile,  —  a  joy  and  an 
inheritance  forever. 


310  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 


XL 
EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY. 

BY  GEORGE  WILLIS   COOKE. 

EMERSON  was  at  the  same  time  an  American  and  a 
cosmopolitan  ;  be  believed  equally  ii  humanity  and 
in  bis  own  country.  An  American  by  inheritance, 
love,  and  genius,  he  belongs  to  the  whole  world  by 
the  breadth  of  his  sympathies,  his  faith  in  the  great 
thoughts  of  all  times  and  men,  and  his  confidence 
in  the  individual  soul.  To  him,  race,  color,  and  cli 
mate  had  but  an  external  importance ;  they  were  but 
sign-marks  to  indicate  the  inferior  phases  of  exist 
ence.  Where  a  man  is  born  does  not  matter,  but 
what  is  born  into  him.  "  If  you  have  man,"  he  says, 
"  black  or  white  is  an  insignificance.  The  intellect, 
that  is  miraculous.  Who  has  it  has  the  talisman. 
His  skin  and  bones,  though  they  were  of  the  color 
of  night,  are  transparent,  and  the  everlasting  stars 
shine  through  with  attractive  beams." 

He  looked  upon  the  nations  into  which  mankind 
is  divided  as  parts  "  in  the  great  anthem  we  call 
history,  a  piece  of  many  parts  and  vast  compass  ; " 
and  he  felt  that  the  mighty  song  of  human  destiny 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.        311 

cannot  be  well  sung  out,  unless  all  the  races  and 
peoples  give  utterance  to  what  is  in  them.  ""\Ve 
have  no  sympathy,"  he  said,  "  with  that  boyish  ego 
tism,  hoarse  with  cheering  for  our  side,  for  our  State, 
for  our  town ;  the  right  patriotism  consists  in  the 
delight  which  springs  from  contributing  cur  peculiar 
and  legitimate  advantages  to  the  benefit  of  humanity. 
Every  foot  of  soil  has  its  proper  quality ;  the  grape 
on  the  two  sides  of  the  same  fence  has  new  flavors ; 
and  so  every  acre  on  the  globe,  every  family  of  men, 
every  point  of  climate,  has  its  distinguishing  vir 
tues."  His  view  of  nationality  is,  that  the  special 
quality  of  each  nation  gives  it  a  merit  and  oppor 
tunity  enjoyed  by  no  other,  and  that  its  genius  is  to 
be  made  a  contribution  to  the  universal  advancement 
of  humanity. 

His  faith  in  the  soul  was  such  that  he  was  willing 
to  omit  no  one  from  the  higher  promise  of  humanity. 
To  him  no  individual  was  ever  so  low  as  to  have  lost 
his  capacity  for  manhood,  or  to  have  lost  the  oppor 
tunity  of  becoming  a  receptacle  of  descending  truth. 
His  faith  in  individuality  made  him  regard  every 
one  as  an  agent  of  the  highest,  and  capable  of  being, 
doing,  and  saying  that  which  is  impossible  to  any 
other  person.  In  each  nation,  however,  there  appear 
great  men  who  give  a  tendency  to  life  and  thought, 
adding  their  personal  peculiarity  to  that  of  climate 
and  race,  to  make  the  national  type.  Each  nation 
representing  some  special  phase  of  social  and  moral 
development,  giving  utterance  to  some  great  thought 


312  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

and  purpose  no  other  nation  represents  so  clearly, 
it  is  desirable  that  reciprocity  should  exist  between 
nations,  for  the  sake  of  the,  common  good. 

Nothing  was  dearer  to  Emerson  than  the  advance 
ment  of  liis  own  country ;  and  to  this  subject  he  often 
returned.     In  that  remarkable  paper  on  "  The  Ameri 
can  Scholar,"  written  at  the  opening  of  his  career 
as   a   public  teacher,  he   said  that  we   must   follow 
the  way  marked  out  for  us  by  our  own  capacities 
and  opportunities.     "  Let  us  be  Americans,  take  new 
guides  and  explore  the  present."    The  same  thought 
is  in  his  latest  appeal  to  his  countrymen  on  "The 
Fortune  of  the   Republic,"  wherein   he  once   more 
asserted  his  conviction  that  we  are  not  to  look  back 
ward,  but  trust  the  ever-fruitful  now.     Zealous  as 
he  was  that  America  should  be  American,  and  riot 
European  or  Asiatic,  he  was  none  the  less  zealous 
that  we  should  not  be  partisans  for  our  own  coun 
try.     Even  when  he  was  urging  us  to  be  faithful  to 
this  marvellous  opportunity  put  into  our  keeping, 
and  to  take  new  patterns  to  ourselves  for  the  making 
of  our  national  life,   he   could  also   urge  upon  our 
attention  the  higher  ideal.     "  We  want  men  of  origi 
nal  perception  and  original  action,"  he  said  in  1878, 
"who  can  open  their  eyes  wider  than  to  a  nation 
ality, —  namely,  to  considerations  of  benefit  to  the 
human  race,  —  can  act  in  the  interest  of  civilization ; 
men  of  elastic,  men  of  moral  mind,  who  can  live  in 
the  moment  and  take  a  step  forward."     "  The  civility 
of  no  race  can  be  perfect,"  he  said  in  1844,  "whilst 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.        313 

another  race  is  degraded.  It  is  a  doctrine  alike  of 
the  oldest  and  of  the  newest  philosophy,  that  man  is 
one,  and  that  you  cannot  injure  any  member  without 
a  sympathetic  injury  to  all  the  members." 

To  be  true  Americans  we  must  be  faithful  to  hu 
manity  ;  for  the  genuinely  democratic  spirit  leads  us 
to  consider  the  rights  of  all,  even  those  not  of  our 
own  race.  If  we  can  respect  the  rights  of  other 
individuals,  we  should  respect  the  rights  of  other  na 
tions  none  the  less  ;  and  the  demanding  of  rights 
for  ourselves  makes  it  imperative  that,  if  we  would 
secure  them,  we  demand  the  rights  of  others  at  the 
same  time.  A  nation  may  become  a  guide  and  in- 
spirer  along  the  way  of  that  brotherhood  of  the  race 
of  which  all  the  prophets  have  dreamed.  Emerson 
would  have  America  become  the  inspired  teacher 
of  this  higher  social  and  national  life.  "  I  wish  to 
see  America,"  he  says  with  ringing  emphasis,  "not 
like  the  old  powers  of  the  earth,  grasping,  exclusive, 
and  narrow,  but  a  benefactor  such  as  no  country  ever 
was,  hospitable  to  all  nations,  legislating  for  all  na 
tionalities.  Nations  were  made  to  help  each  other 
as  much  as  families  were  ;  and  all  advancement  is  by 
ideas,  and  not  by  brute  force  or  mechanic  force." 

Such  being  Emerson's  view  of  nationality,  it  can  be 
best  illustrated,  and  its  truthfulness  inquired  into,  by 
turning  to  that  field  of  activity  to  which  he  was  most 
strongly  attracted.  It  is  as  the  literary  interpreter  of 
America  that  he  can  be  most  clearly  understood  in  re 
lation  to  his  humanitarian  and  political  convictions. 


314  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

In  the  doctrine  of  individuality  is  the  explanation 
of  all  his  other  theories.  That  doctrine  he  early  de 
clared  :  "  Help  must  come  from  the  bosom  alone." 
In  another  statement  he  makes  the  meaning  clearer : 
"  The  world  is  nothing,  the  man  is  all ;  in  yourself  is 
the  law  of  all  nature  ;  ...  in  yourself  slumbers  the 
whole  of  reason  ;  it  is  for  you  to  know  all,  it  is  for 
you  to  dare  all."  It  is  a  bold  doctrine  he  thus  pre 
sents,  not  acceptable  to  the  present  time.  We  are 
now  enamoured  with  the  outward,  believing  that  all 
truth  comes  through  the  senses.  To  the  agnostic 
nothing  can  be  so  repugnant  as  Emerson's  doctrine 
of  the  soul.  It  often  happens,  however,  that  the  man 
of  intuition  and  the  man  of  science,  when  faithful  in 
the  search  for  truth  without  dogmatic  aims,  starting 
from  opposite  sides  come  together  unexpectedly.  It 
is  the  same  truth  they  seek,  and  the  same  world 
they  seek  it  in ;  and  so  it  comes  about  that  outer 
and  inner  prove  themselves  to  be  one. 

The  dispute  about  methods  is  of  little  avail ;  there 
must  be  some  other  test.  There  can  be  no  better  test 
than  that  which  is  suggested  by  Emerson's  career  as 
a  man  of  letters.  What  is  it  which  has  the  greatest 
influence  in  developing  the  literary  activities  of  a 
nation,  creating  the  truest  poetry  and  the  most  per 
fect  art  ?  Finding  the  answer  to  this  question,  we 
have  found  the  answer  to  the  question  of  method  in 
so  far  as  it  most  deeply  concerned  Emerson's  thought. 
At  the  same  time  we  shall  find  Emerson's  point  of 
view  as  an  American,  and  how  it  was  that  in  desiring 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  yATIOXALITY.         315 

the  advancement  of  humanity  he  looked  for  it  along 
the  lines  of  national  development. 

There  are  two  theories  of  the  sources  of  literary 
creation.  One  of  them  Emerson  has  presented  with 
that  conciseness  and  force  which  mark  his  best  words : 
"  I  ask  not  for  the  great,  the  remote,  the  romantic ; 
what  is  doing  in  Italy  or  Arabia  ;  what  is  Greek  art 
or  Provencal  minstrelsy ;  I  embrace  the  common,  I 
explore  and  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  familiar,  the  low. 
Give  me  insight  into  to-day,  and  you  may  have 
the  antique  and  future  worlds."  To  round  out  this 
thought  of  his  to  its  fulness  there  must  be  added 
these  wrords :  "  Wherever  a  man  comes,  there  comes 
revolution.  The  old  is  for  slaves.  When  a  man 
comes,  all  books  are  legible,  all  things  transparent, 
all  religious  are  forms." 

Matthew  Arnold  can  best  present  to  us  the  other 
theory  of  literary  creation,  though  it  must  be  in  words 
which  are  as  diffuse  as  Emerson's  are  concise  :  — 

"  What  the  young  writer  wants  is  a  hand  to  guide  him 
through  the  confusion  of  the  present  times,  a  voice  to  pre 
scribe  to  him  the  aim  which  he  should  keep  in  view,  and 
to  explain  to  him  that  the  value  of  the  literary  works 
which  offer  themselves  to  his  attention  is  relative  to  their 
power  of  helping  him  forward  on  his  road  towards  this 
aim.  Such  a  guide  the  English  writer  at  the  present  day 
will  nowhere  find.  Failing  this,  all  that  can  be  looked 
for,  all  indeed  that  can  be  desired,  is  that  his  attention 
should  be  fixed  on  excellent  models ;  that  he  may  repro 
duce,  at  any  rate,  something  of  their  excellence,  by  pene- 


316  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

trating  himself  with  their  works  and  by  catching  their 
spirit,  if  he  cannot  be  taught  to  produce  what  is  excel 
lent  independently.  0  .  .  As  he  penetrates  into  the  spirit 
of  the  great  classical  works,  as  he  becomes  gradually  aware 
of  their  intense  significance,  their  noble  simplicity,  and 
their  calm  pathos,  he  \vill  be  convinced  that  it  is  this 
effect,  —  unity  and  profoundness  of  moral  impression,  —  at 
which  the  ancients  aimed;  that  it  is  this  which  constitutes 
the  grandeur  of  their  works,  and  which  makes  them  im 
mortal.  He  will  desire  to  direct  his  own  efforts  towards 
producing  the  same  effect.  Above  all,  he  will  deliver 
himself  from  the  jargon  of  modern  criticism,  and  escape 
the  danger  of  producing  poetical  works  conceived  in  the 
spirit  of  the  passing  time,  and  which  partake  of  its  tran- 
sitoriness." 

The  history  of  American  literature  is  a  sufficient 
test  of  the  worthiness  of  these  two  theories,  proving 
one  to  be  invigorating  and  creative,  while  the  other 
has  a  tendency  in  it  towards  what  is  depressing  and 
destructive.  While  the  Americans,  during  the  first 
period  of  our  literature,  were  mere  imitators  of  the 
English,  seeking  alike  there  for  great  models  and  for 
their  materials,  nothing  was  accomplished.  The  lit 
erature  of  that  time  is  forgotten,  except  as  some  his 
torian  brings  to  our  knowledge  remnants  of  a  buried 
past.  When  Cooper  began  to  write  of  American  In 
dians  and  forest  scenery,  and  Bryant  of  the  hills  and 
rivers  and  birds  about  his  own  home,  an  American 
literature  began  to  appear.  It  was  not  noble  art- 
models  which  were  wanted,  but  a  living  man  to  see 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.        317 

and  describe  what  was  about  him.  Art  caii  never 
take  the  place  of  life  ;  great  models  do  not  go  before 
enthusiasm  for  the  beauty  which  is  all  around. 

Others  had  set  the  example  of  going  to  Xature  and 
being  independent ;  but  the  influence  of  Emerson  in 
this  direction  cannot  be  overestimated.  Until  he 
began  to  exert  an  influence  on  our  literature,  it  was 
possible  to  say  that  our  writers  were  mere  imitators 
of  the  English.  It  was,  indeed,  almost  impossible 
for  the  American  writers  at  the  beginning  of  the  cen 
tury,  situated  as  they  were,  to  keep  from  being  over 
powered  by  a  great  and  noble  literature,  full  of  art 
and  genius,  presented  to  them  in  their  own  language 
by  the  authors  of  another  nation.  That  literature 
embodied  other  ideas  than  their  own,  brought  be 
fore  them  traditions  and  memories  alien  to  their  own 
spirit  as  a  people,  and  describing  nature  under  such 
forms  as  were  not  familiar  to  them.  The  traditional 
influence  was  upon  them  as  it  was  upon  the  English, 
and  they  went  on  imitating  the  old  models. 

It  was  not  long  after  we  became  politically  inde 
pendent  that  the  desire  began  to  be  felt  for  literary 
freedom.  As  early  as  1809  Buckminster  expressed 
the  hope  that  our  literature  would  take  a  bolder 
flight  and  form  itself  on  better  models.  Two  years 
earlier  Noah  Webster  appealed  to  his  countrymen  to 
think  and  speak  for  themselves,  saying,  "  It  is  de 
sirable  that  inquiries  should  be  free  and  opinions 
unshackled."  It  was  one  of  the  fondest  dreams  of 
Webster's  life,  that  we  should  cast  off  the  Old- World 


318  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

models  and  develop  a  literature  based  on  our  own 
life  and  national  characteristics.  When  Bryant  wrote 
his  essay  on  American  poetry,  in  1818,  he  treated  it 
as  mostly  rubbish,  and  made  a  demand,  according  to 
his  biographer,  "  for  a  spirit  of  greater  independence, 
for  less  imitation  of  form,  for  a  more  hearty  reliance 
upon  native  instinct  and  inspiration  ;  in  a  word,  for 
greater  freedom,  greater  simplicity,  and  greater  truth." 
Such  was  the  desire  of  nearly  all  the  writers  who 
came  to  have  any  influence  during  the  first  three 
decades  of  the  century. 

It  was  easier  to  dream  of  literary  independence, 
however,  than  to  give  an  inspiring  impulse  in  the 
creation  of  a  new  form  of  writing.  When  Cooper 
was  writing  his  first  novel,  in  1820,  lie  long  delayed 
its  completion  because  he  distrusted  "  the  disposition 
of  the  country  to  read  a  book  that  treated  of  its 
own  familiar  interests."  A  taste  had  to  be  created 
for  what  was  fresh,  native,  and  original.  Though 
"  native  Americanism  "  was  developed  in  politics,  in 
finance,  and  in  social  custom,  the  number  of  persons 
who  had  an  interest  in  literature  was  so  small,  and 
the  material  interests  were  so  paramount  and  ever- 
pressing,  there  was  little  hope  for  an  encouragement 
of  what  was  distinctive  in  literary  art.  It  was  the 
novelty  and  freshness  of  the  writings  of  Cooper, 
Irving,  and  Bryant  which  gave  them  recognition  in 
England  ;  and  it  was  the  interest  awakened  by  these 
authors  abroad  which  first  really  made  them  popular 
at  home.  They  had  to  develop  a  taste  for  the  work 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.         319 

they  did,  create  an  audience  and  train  it  to  a  love  of 
what  is  truly  American. 

Much  as  these  men  did,  however,  they  were  never 
fully  emancipated  from  their  reverence  for  the  old 
models,  which  influenced  even  their  best  work.  It 
was  left  for  a  later  generation  to  create  an  American 
literature  in  a  more  distinctive  sense.  It  was  not 
enough  to  describe  American  character  and  scenery 
while  the  old  models  and  ideals  were  retained.  The 
flavor  of  the  soil  must  go  into  the  writing  before 
it  could  be  really  American.  It  was  that  literary 
movement  which  began  in  this  country  about  the 
year  1835,  and  with  which  the  name  of  Emerson  is 
indissolubly  connected,  which  has  given  to  our  litera 
ture  a  native  flavor  not  to  be  mistaken.  In  America 
we  have  breadth,  range,  and  endless  promise.  Here 
is  every  form  of  scenery,  a  clear  sky,  a  pure  atmos 
phere,  and  a  horizon  stretching  boundlessly  away. 
Here  are  no  cramped  physical  conditions  ;  a  conti 
nent  opens  before  us,  crowded  with  variety  and 
promise  of  life.  Conventionalisms  are  no  longer  op 
pressive;  the  nightmare  weight  of  centuries  is  not 
upon  us ;  we  may  go  forth  in  the  pure  morning  air, 
fresh,  natural,  joyous,  to  see  with  our  own  eyes  and 
to  act  with  a  free  spirit.  Here  is  mixing  of  races, 
crossing  of  blood,  new  combinations  of  faculty  and 
talent,  an  untainted  race  of  men,  and  opportunities 
as  untrammelled  as  the  daylight. 

The  promise  of  this  new  world  of  Nature  and  man 
Emerson  was  quite  awake  to,  and  no  hope  of  his  ran 


320  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

higher  than  that  we  should  have  a  literature  worthy 
of  these  physical  conditions,  and  the  freedom  amidst 
which  it  may  develop.  His  expectation  did  not  rest 
alone  on  Nature,  but  on  the  free  opportunity  given 
for  the  soul's  expansion.  And  it  is  worthy  of  no 
tice,  that  the  development  of  our  literature  into  new 
forms  and  ideals  came  with  the  awakening  of  a  fresh 
conception  of  man's  place  in  Nature,  and  as  a  moral 
and  spiritual  being.  The  philosophy  of  Emerson  was 
creative,  it  set  men  to  look  about  them  more  keenly, 
and  it  made  them  care  more  for  what  is  real  than  for 
what  is  formal  and  artistic.  He  gave  an  impulse  to 
thought,  he  made  men  look  directly  at  the  world,  he 
made  them  say  straight  out  of  the  heart  the  things 
which  were  in  it.  He  gave  them  faith  in  themselves 
and  in  their  own  thoughts,  he  roused  in  them  a  de 
sire  to  say  simply  and  sincerely  how  the  world  and 
life  seemed  to  them.  Here  were  the  elements  out  of 
which  to  create  a  fresh,  vigorous,  and  national  litera 
ture.  "  Look  in  thy  heart  and  write,"  was  heard  by 
the  generation  to  which  Emerson  belonged ;  and  as 
they  heeded  that  eternal  word,  casting  models  and 
formalities  aside,  they  created  an  American  literature. 
"  It  is  but  a  few  years,"  says  a  critic  of  rare  taste  and 
a  charming  style,  "  since  we  have  dared  to  be  Ameri 
can  in  even  the  details  and  accessories  of  our  literary 
work  ;  to  make  our  allusions  to  natural  objects  real, 
not  conventional ;  to  ignore  the  nightingale  and  sky 
lark,  and  look  for  the  classic  and  romantic  on  our 
own  soil.  This  change  began  mainly  with  Emerson. 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.         321 

Some  of  us  can  recall  the  bewilderment  with  which 
his  verses  on  the  humble-bee,  for  instance,  were  re 
ceived,  when  the  choice  of  subject  caused  as  much 
wonder  as  the  treatment."  "When  we  .turn  to  his 
earlier  addresses,  and  consider  what  he  says  in  behalf 
of  listening  to  the  voice  within  and  to  the  voice  of 
Xature,  and  when  we  look  at  his  influence  on  Haw 
thorne,  Thoreau,  and  Margaret  Fuller,  we  cannot 
think  these  words  claim  too  much  for  Emerson. 
Though  a  new  generation  is  now  with  us,  his  influ 
ence  on  our  literature  has  not  passed  away.  There 
are  new  ideals  appealing  to  us ;  but  his  voice  is 
heard  above  that  of  every  other,  and  the  impulse  of 
his  life  yet  remains  a  fresh  and  inspiring  creative 
influence. 

Henry  James  the  novelist,  in  his  life  of  Haw 
thorne,  has  attempted  to  show  how  that  great  master 
was  crippled  as  a  literary  creator  by  the  absence  of 
the  picturesque  and  romantic  in  America.  He  for 
gets  that  the  highest  of  all  literary  motives  come 
from  sympathy  with  man  in  the  daily  struggles  of 
his  own  inward  nature,  and  that  literature  has  other 
purposes  than  artistic  form  and  beauty.  The  best 
answer  which  can  be  made  to  such  literary  theoriz 
ing  is  to  be  found  in  the  words  of  George  Eliot,  to 
whom  plain  men  and  women  were  vastly  more  inter 
esting  than  picturesque  knights  and  troubadours,  and 
who  turned  away  from  the  romantic  past  to  portray 
the  homely  present.  "  Depend  upon  it/'  she  said  in 
one  of  the  noblest  of  her  novels,  "  you  would  gain 

21 


322  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

unspeakably  if  you  would  learn  with  me  to  see  some 
of  the  poetry  and  pathos,  the  tragedy  and  the 
comedy,  lying  in  the  experience  of  a  human  soul 
that  looks  out  through  dull  gray  eyes,  and  that 
speaks  in  a  voice  of  quite  ordinary  tones." 

The  search  for  the  merely  romantic  and  the  artistic 
casts  a  blight  over  some  of  the  best  literature  of  the 
present  hour.  It  is  beautiful  without,  but  there  is 
no  life  within  ;  it  describes  the  surface  of  life  in 
glowing  colors,  but  it  does  not  penetrate  to  the  heart. 
It  gives  us  a  magnificent  form,  a  glowing  outline, 
and  melody  of  movement,  but  there  is  no  living  soul 
to  animate  the  figure.  It  has  no  passion,  no  ardor, 
nothing  heroic,  nothing  sternly  pure,  nothing  of  great 
manhood.  The  writers  who  have  accepted  the  liter 
ary  theory  based  on  imitation  of  the  past  are  tame, 
fashionable,  and  polished  in  their  style  and  thought ; 
they  are  mere  describers ;  not  poets,  riot  creators. 
They  look  not  towards  the  dawn,  they  look  not  about 
to  see  how  humanity  in  its  possibilities  can  be  por 
trayed  in  the  light  of  opening  day,  when  all  is  fresh 
and  pure.  The  joy,  pain,  and  tragedy  which  life 
everywhere  presents  they  pass  by.  They  do  not 
care  for  anything  so  real ;  they  do  not  see  the  liter 
ary  promise  there  is  in  these  mighty  facts  of  daily 
existence.  There  must  be  as  much  that  is  genuinely 
human  and  heroic  in  the  life  of  the  toiling  millions 
of  America  as  in  the  rudeness  and  savagery  of  a 
more  picturesque  age.  Better  the  rugged  verse  of 
Whitman,  with  its  intense  appreciation  of  the  strug- 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.        323 

gling  and  urgent  life  of  America,  than  the  polished 
prose  of  James,  with  its  keen-thrusting  analysis  of 
that  pseudo-Americanism  which  imitates  what  is 
shallow  and  pretentious  in  European  society. 

If  we  take  much  of  the  highest  literature  of  the 
present  hour  in  England  and  America,  and  examine 
it  closely,  we  find  it  beautiful  without,  but  full  of 
doubt  and  weariness  within.  The  English  writers 
since  1865  show  too  little  of  the  joy,  hope,  and  con 
viction  which  marked  those  of  the  preceding  age. 
When  we  turn  to  their  books  we  find  much  to  admire 
in  the  way  of  artistic  perfection  and  a  wonderful  de 
velopment  of  poetic  melody.  "When  we  look  to  the 
inner  motive  of  their  poetry  we  find  it  to  be  retro 
spective  or  sceptical.  They  believe  in  the  past,  but 
not  in  the  present.  They  are  full  of  praise  of  the 
faiths  of  the  dead  past,  clothing  them  with  beauty 
and  grace  ;  but  toward  the  faiths  of  the  living  now 
they  adopt  the  philosophy  of  ignorance.  They  seem 
always  to  be  weary  and  doubtful,  to  suffer  from  per 
petual  ennui.  How  different  the  poetry  of  Words 
worth,  Tennyson,  and  Emerson,  with  their  delight  in 
the  near  and  familiar,  their  eyes  turned  towards  the 
present  and  the  future  with  the  expectancy  of  faith. 

Literature  demands  the  thrill  of  life,  deep  energy 
of  purpose,  tragedy  of  the  inward  nature  in  its 
searching  for  a  solution  of  life's  meaning,  passion,  en 
thusiasm,  boundless  aims,  and  a  faith  pure  and  sub 
lime.  The  heart  quivering  with  human  sympathy 
and  pity,  the  heart  on  fire  with  high  ideal  enterprise, 


324  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

the  soul  aflame  with  mighty  thoughts,  the  soul  aglow 
with  spiritual  conviction,  —  out  of  these  will  books 
grow  that  have  immortality  in  them.  It  is  said  by 
"Wordsworth  that  poetry  is  emotion  recalled  in  hours 
of  tranquillity;  but  there  must  be  emotion,  if  there 
is  to  be  poetry,  and  even  deep  and  surging  emotion, 
worked  sternly  out  into  forms  of  beauty  in  the  hours 
of  calm  and  pure  thought.  Only  the  hero  in  possi 
bility,  however,  can  write  a  heroic  book,  —  one  who 
feels  the  heroic  throb  of  the  heart  when  the  brave 
deed  has  been  done,  and  the  longing  to  act  in  the 
midst  of  great  concerns.  He  may  not  have  done  the 
hero's  deed,  but  he  must  be  capable  of  imagining  and 
feeling  it,  —  and  of  doing  it,  too,  —  and  then  his 
words  will  breathe,  his  pages  will  have  in  them  the 
tramp  of  hosts  and  the  joy  of  battles  won. 

That  literature  is  great  which  is  the  product  of 
great  living.  When  men  are  weak  and  paltry  and 
sensual  they  have  nothing  great  and  wise  to  say,  and 
their  books  are  worthless.  It  is  the  age  which  is 
moved  by  earnest  motives  which  produces  a  litera 
ture  of  moral  power  and  beauty.  A  frivolous  time 
may  give  us  finely  rounded  periods  and  ornate  sen 
tences,  but  at  the  heart  of  them  they  will  be  hollow 
and  dead.  When  mighty  thoughts  pulsate  through  a 
nation's  being,  uniting  the  hearts  of  a  people  in  one 
common  purpose,  making  them  love  justice  and  truth 
far  more  than  life  and  its  beauty,  then  will  books  be 
written  that  shall  live  forever.  The  times  of  mental 
wakening,  clash  of  thought  with  thought  and  culture 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.        325 

with  culture,  have  been  the  times  of  the  greatest  lit 
erary  activity.  Not  all  outward  influences  taken  to 
gether,  however,  and  fused  into  one  concentrated  white 
heat  of  environing  impulse,  could  produce  the  weak 
est  of  the  world's  literary  masters  ;  but  they  help  to 
bring  out  what  is  in  men,  they  give  occasion  for  the 
outburst  and  full  flush  of  a  capable  soul.  Only  a 
rose-bush  can  produce  roses,  whatever  the  soil,  nur 
ture,  and  climate.  Xo  outward  conditions  can  bring 
forth  mighty  thoughts,  thoughts  which  rouse  or  glad 
den  the  world,  from  the  brains  of  ordinary  men.  The 
poet  is  born ;  he  conies  as  a  new  light  into  the  midst 
of  the  world's  darkness,  to  say  and  to  create  what 
has  not  been  said  and  created  before.  His  appear 
ance  is  a  miracle ;  no  study  of  physical  or  social  con 
ditions  can  account  for  him.  He  is  a  burst  of  light 
out  of  those  regions  where  light  always  is ;  he  brings 
revelations  of  a  world  richer  and  more  beautiful  than 
that  in  which  we  daily  live.  The  poet  does  not  wait 
on  circumstances  ;  he  creates  circumstances,  and  a 
world  of  the  romantic  and  picturesque,  out  of  the 
flaming  sentiments  of  his  own  heart.  The  poet  is 
not  the  product  of  an  environing  past ;  he  environs 
himself  rather  with  those  ideals  which  answer  to  all 
that  is  within  his  own  being,  as  rose-tint  answers  to 
rose-tint  to  make  a  thing  of  perfect  beauty. 

The  times  when  the  faces  of  men  have  been  turned 
wholly  towards  the  past  have  not  been  those  of  liter 
ary  fruitfulness.  It  is  the  seeing  eye  without  and 
the  burning  heart  within  which  are  the  truest  models 


326  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

of  literary  art.  What  they  do  not  teach  cannot  be 
made  up  to  us  by  any  perfection  in  words  or  any 
richness  in  music.  Thought  is  the  creator  of  form, 
and  not  form  the  inventor  of  thought.  The  true 
music  is  to  be  found  in  the  harmonious  soul,  and  not 
in  the  rhythmic  concurrence  of  words.  The  springs 
of  literary  power  and  beauty  are  within ;  the  Homers 
and  Shakspeares  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  no  other 
masters  than  their  own  souls. 

No  one  could  more  clearly  recognize  than  Emer 
son  has  done,  that  literature  must  be  the  outgrowth 
of  life,  that  it  must  proceed  from  thought,  sympathy, 
and  experience.  What  we  have  not  seen,  heard,  and 
felt,  how  can  we  describe  ?  If  we  take  a  scene  from 
the  past  for  our  story,  for  the  sake  of  a  picturesque 
setting,  we  must  infuse  into  it  the  life  which  has  been 
our  own,  or  it  will  not  glow  with  passion  and  thrill 
with  energy.  It  is  because  our  life  is  like  the  life 
of  the  past,  because  the  heart  of  man  is  the  same  in 
all  ages,  touched  by  the  same  emotions  and  played 
upon  by  the  same  experiences,  that  we  are  enabled 
to  represent  bygone  times  with  reality  and  justice. 
Whatever  the  time  or  scene,  it  is  our  own  heart 
which  throbs  in  its  beauty  and  our  own  mind  which 
informs  it  with  truth.  Emerson  has  recognized  in 
his  characteristic  manner  that  our  experience  is  our 
test  of  other  men  and  times.  "  I  am  tasting  the 
self-same  life,"  he  says,  —  "its  sweetness,  its  great 
ness,  its  pain,  which  I  so  much  admire  in  other  men. 
Do  not  foolishly  ask  of  the  inscrutable,  obliterated 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.        327 

past,  what  it  cannot  tell,  —  the  details  of  that  nature, 
of  that  day,  called  Byron  or  Burke  ;  —  but  ask  it  of 
the  enveloping  now.  The  more  quaintly  you  inspect 
its  evanescent  beauties,  its  wonderful  details,  its  as 
tounding  whole,  —  so  much  the  more  you  master  the 
biography  of  this  hero,  and  that,  and  every  hero." 

As  extravagant  as  this  may  seem,  a  great  and  preg 
nant  truth  lies  under  it,  and  the  force  of  it  must  be 
recognized  wherever  literature  is  to  have  a  living 
power  and  charm.  To  write  great  books  we  must  be 
capable  of  feeling  and  thinking  great  things. 

He  never  ceased  to  criticise  us  for  the  spirit  of 
imitation.  He  did  not  see  in  America  that  original 

O 

life  which  he  so  much  desired  should  be  developed 
amongst  us.  Men  did  not  sufficiently  assert  them 
selves,  living  and  thinking  as  it  seems  to  them  best, 
to  satisfy  him.  "  America  is  provincial,"  he  said  in 
one  of  his  last  addresses.  "  See  the  secondariness 
and  aping  of  foreign  and  English  life,  that  runs 
through  this  country,  in  building,  in  dress,  in  eating, 
in  books.  .  .  .  The  tendency  of  this  is  to  make  all 
men  alike;  to  extinguish  individualism  and  choke 
up  all  the  channels  of  inspiration  from  God  to  man." 
From  first  to  last  this  was  his  criticism  ;  and  it  was 
needed.  Perhaps  it  was  too  self-conscious  a  criticism 
to  have  produced  the  desired  effect.  It  is  not  when 
men  know  their  weaknesses  that  they  accomplish  the 
largest  results.  A  life  of  impulse  and  energy  is  the 
one  which  develops  a  literature  of  enduring  quality, 
and  not  one  that  can  see  its  own  defects  as  in  a  niir- 


328  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

ror.  With  the  creative  skill  of  a  Homer  or  a  Dante, 
Emerson  would  have  accomplished  that  in  which  he 
has  now  only  partially  succeeded. 

Urgent  as  was  his  demand  that  we  should  be 
American  and  individual,  foregoing  the  past  and 
trusting  to  present  inspiration,  he  was  himself  a 
diligent  student  of  literature.  He  loved  books,  and 
he  knew  how  to  use  them,  for  his  essays  everywhere 
show  the  indications  of  his  literary  tastes.  Not  an 
omnivorous  reader,  he  contrived  to  secure  what  is 
best,  by  some  process  of  mental  selection  which  was 
extraordinary.  What  is  of  the  highest  import  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  appropriate  to  his  own  page,  fit 
ting  the  quotation  into  the  living  structure  of  his 
essay,  as  if  it  grew  there.  He  knew  how  to  get 
quickening  of  thought  and  inspiration  from  books, 
how  to  assimilate  the  thoughts  of  other  men  into  his 
own  life-blood.  ISTor  did  he  altogether  scorn  the 
past,  for  he  took  many  a  lesson  from  it.  He  was  es 
sentially  a  cosmopolitan,  admiring  what  is  excellent 
wherever  it  is  to  be  found. 

These  seemingly  antagonistic  tendencies  in  Emer 
son  were  in  reality  quite  in  harmony  with  each  other. 
He  scorned  imitation  for  the  same  reason  that  he 
loved  original  thought.  His  delight  in  the  great 
books  grew  from  the  same  root  as  his  faith  in  the 
now  and  here.  He  went  to  the  literary  masters,  not 
for  models,  but  for  quickening  of  heart  and  mind. 
They  were  to  him  like  the  mountain  height,  the 
ocean  roused  by  the  stormy  winds  of  heaven,  or  the 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.         329 

sinile  that  plays  tenderly  over  the  face  of  a  babe, — 
elementary  forces,  to  be  studied  as  one  with  flower 
and  star.  As  he  would  assimilate  the  mountain 
scene,  so  would  he  take  Homer  into  his  own  nature. 
As  God  speaks  to  me,  he  might  have  said,  so  has  he 
spoken  to  other  men  and  times ;  the  word  to  others 
is  also  good  for  me  to  hear. 

Emerson  felt  what  all  the  literary  initiators  have 
felt,  —  the  need  of  liberating  the  human  spirit  from 
the  bondage  of  oppressive  forms.  He  wished  to  do 
for  America  what  Lessing  did  for  Germany,  —  throw 
off  the  influence  of  ideals  not  in  accordance  with  the 
genius  of  his  own  country.  This  was  also  the  pur 
pose  which  animated  the  great  literary  pathfinders  of 
the  Eenaissauce ;  they  wished  to  develop  a  national 
literature  by  writing  in  the  language  of  the  people ; 
and,  by  setting  the  example,  they  did  an  immense  ser 
vice  in  the  awakening  of  the  modern  spirit.  So  was 
it  when  men  grew  tired  of  the  classic  doctrine  of  the 
unities,  and  other  such  antiquated  methods ;  the  old 
was  thrown  aside  because  a  new  life  and  power  had  ap 
peared.  The  same  struggle  has  gone  on  in  every  crea 
tive  period,  and  in  every  nation  which  has  come  to  a 
literary  expression  of  its  genius,  —  a  struggle  for  in 
dependence  of  old  forms  and  ideals,  and  for  liberty  of 
uttering  the  human  soul  in  the  words  and  in  the  spirit 
of  the  present  time  and  place.  Until  a  nation  arrives 
at  such  measure  of  genius  that  it  is  capable  of  stand 
ing  up  in  its  own  might  and  glory  to  assert  its  freedom 
and  its  manhood,  tnere  is  little  hope  for  its  literature. 


330  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

When  we  turn  to  the  great  creative  age  of  English 
literature,  that  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  one  of  its 
characteristics  to  which  our  attention  is  soonest  called 
is  the  avidity  with  which  its  men  of  letters  absorbed 
what  was  best,  or  most  to  their  purpose,  in  the  lit 
erature  of  other  lands  and  times.  They  borrowed  a 
good  plot  wherever  they  could  find  it ;  and  those  who 
could,  sought  the  inspiration  of  Italy,  then  the  centre 
of  the  world's  intellectual  activity.  But  the  men  of 
the  dawn  and  full  morning  glory  of  English  literature, 
eager  as  they  were  to  gather  the  riches  of  every  clime, 
wrote  English  books  for  English  people.  It  was  a 
time  when  men  were  awake,  when  the  whole  world 
seemed  to  be  opening  to  them,  when  many  forces 
were  clashing  together.  The  wealth  of  the  classic 
ages  was  being  opened  before  them,  the  New  World 
was  just  discovered,  and  the  spirit  of  commercial 
adventure  being  developed;  and  on  every  hand  in 
fluences  were  at  work  to  rouse  and  to  liberate  the 
human  spirit.  Feudalism  died,  and  the  modern 
world  was  born.. 

Every  great  literary  period  has  come  when  men  were 
thus  roused  by  the  stirring  of  new  and  antagonistic 
forces.  It  is  not  the  conflict  of  civilization  with 
civilization  which  begets  literary  power ;  but  when 
forces  long  developed  apart  come  in  contact  with 
each  other,  in  the  movements  of  peoples  or  in  the 
progress  of  discovery,  men  are  thrown  out  of  their 
old  habits,  their  minds  are  set  free,  and  they  come  to 
act  from  what  is  within,  not  merely  by  the  force  of 


E^fERSOX'S  VIEW  OF  XATIOXAL1TY.        331 

what  is  without.  They  find  themselves  no  longer 
the  victims  of  circumstance  and  custom,  they  rejoice 
in  all  their  powers,  and  pour  out  their  souls  with  a 
joy  pure  and  fresh.  For  the  first  time  then  they  live 
as  men,  take  delight  in  all  their  faculties,  and  pour 
forth  their  thoughts,  feelings,  and  ideals  with  the 
grace  and  delight  of  a  child  playing  in  the  summer 
sun.  When  Greece  came-  in  contact  with  the  East, 
had  its  imagination  roused  by  the  marvels  of  that 
fruitful  region,  and  had  been  stirred  to  new  political 
activity  in  defence  of  its  own  existence,  it  produced 
Plato,  ^Eschylus,  and  Herodotus.  So  was  it  that  the 
energies  of  Europe,  brought  into  contact  with  new 
and  widening  influences,  urging  men  to  fresh  exer 
tions  for  political  development  and  liberty,  and  ap 
pealing  to  them  through  loftier  ideals,  gave  to  Italy 
her  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Eaphael. 

These  movements  of  national  genius  Emerson 
recognized  ;  but  it  is  to  be  said,  that  he  did  not  see 
what  is  the  true  influence  of  the  past  on  the  present. 
He  did  not  clearly  realize  that  the  past  may  serve 
to  the  individual  the  same  office  which  the  world- 
movements  do  to  nations  and  ages.  The  mind 
comes  in  contact  with  what  men  have  been  and 
done;  is  quickened  and  inspired  by  the  riches  of 
that  mighty  world  which  lies  behind  iis.  The 
breadth  and  the  wealth  of  it,  liberating  them  from 
the  material  thraldom  of  the  present,  sets  them  free 
to  create  new  forms  and  ideals  which  shall  represent 
what  is  best  out  of  every  human  endeavor.  This 


332  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

capacity  of  the  past  Emerson  did  not  see ;  it  was  not 
open  to  him  to  realize  it  in  its  fulness  of  power.  He 
did  see,  what  is  even  more  important,  that  genuine 
literary  productiveness  must  be  the  growth  of  the 
impulses  of  the  present.  The  past  may  give  us 
materials,  it  may  stimulate  and  broaden  the  mind  ; 
but  the  present  must  give  the  thrill  of  life  and  the 
beating  heart. 

Emerson's  faith  in  America  is  justified,  whether 
we  trust  in  the  capacities  of  the  individual  soul,  or 
whether  our  expectation  grows  from  the  promises 
of  a  new  civilization.  America  brings  together  the 
races  of  the  world  as  no  nation  or  time  ever  did  be 
fore  ;  and  it  centres  in  itself  the  freshest  impulses 
of  an  age  full  of  activity  and  daring.  Its  freedom 
from  traditions  of  its  own,  after  the  pattern  of  which 
it  would  need  to  live  and  walk,  gives  it  the  opportu 
nity  to  acquire  the  traditions  of  all  the  lands  from 
which  it  takes  its  great  population.  Greece  had  the 
traditions  of  its  own  past,  those  of  Egypt  and  of  a  lit 
tle  corner  of  Asia ;  Rome  had  the  traditions  of  Greece 
and  Egypt  and  a  part  of  the  East  in  addition  to  its 
own  ;  Italy  fed  on  the  inherited  life  of  the  Christian 
and  classic  ages  ;  England  turns  its  eyes  to  the  past 
of  Europe  ;  but  America  takes  to  itself  the  tra 
ditions  of  the  whole  world.  America  no  castles  and 
feudal  romances  !  What  is  such  trumpery  as  this 
compared  to  those  long  successions  of  human  effort 
after  the  ideal,  which  have  been  caught  up  into  the 
forms  of  mythology,  history,  poetry,  romance,  and 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.         333 

art,  and  which  now  await  the  new  people  who  can 
transform  them  into  its  own  inheritance,  and  give 
them  back  to  the  world  no  longer  national  traditions, 
but  the  poetry  of  mankind  ?  We  are  to  have  all 
mythology,  all  history,  all  literature,  for  our  posses 
sion.  As  a  free  people  we  are  to  look  upon  the  life 
of  the  race,  its  heroisms  and  achievements,  and,  suf 
fusing  it  with  the  new  spirit,  turn  it  into  song  and 
story  for  the  free  peoples  to  come.  We  shall  sing 
not  only  of  the  taking  of  Troy  and  of  Paradise  Lost, 
but  of  the  triumphs  of  man  as  a  free  soul.  A  new 
light  will  gleam  along  the  pages  of  the  old  traditions, 
and  we  shall  find  in  them  a  meaning  and  a  beauty 
not  there  before.  This  is  whereto  the  literature  of 
the  present  time  is  feeling,  blindly  and  feebly,  amid 
crudities  and  weariness,  but  in  hope  and  promise.  It 
recognizes  the  wealth  of  material  with  which  it  has 

o 

to  work,  but  it  has  not  caught  that  living  spirit  of 
faith  which  must  be  at  the  heart  of  its  creative  im 
pulse.  It  awaits  a  new  land  for  its  achievements ; 
and  Emerson's  hope  for  America  may  yet  be  justified 
by  a  literature  in  harmony  with  the  new  time. 

If  the  anticipations  of  Emerson  were  in  any  degree 
correct,  the  literature  representing  America  will  have 
in  it  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  equal  rights,  recogni 
tion  of  man  wherever  and  however  found,  trust  in  the 
powers  of  Xature  and  of  the  mind,  and  an  abiding 
conviction  that  the  life  of  the  world  is  that  of  Spir 
itual  Intelligence.  Such  forces  as  these,  working  in 
a  virgin  soil,  should  produce  epics,  and  dramas,  and 


334  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

histories  not  less  great,  but  truer,  than  any  the  past 
has  given  us.  Genius  will  fitly  sing  the  new  earth 
and  the  new  peoples. 

A  nation  that  would  be  great  must  not  trust  to 
what  other  men  have  done  and  believed.  It  may 
have  sympathies  so  wide  as  to  look  with  joy  on  the 
achievements  and  traditions  of  other  peoples  ;  but  it 
must  have  memories  of  its  own  and  cherish  them, 
before  it  can  rise  to  the  loftiest  attitude  of  national 
conviction  and  self-consciousness.  It  must  have  an 
idea  of  its  own  destiny;  it  must  have  an  ideal  capa 
ble  of  uniting  its  citizens  in  a  common  purpose  ;  it 
must  have  the  realization  of  its  own  individuality  as 
a  people.  It  is  not  like  other  nations ;  it  has  a  past, 
a  physical  environment,  and  an  inner  consciousness, 
quite  its  own.  In  being  distinctly  national  it  can 
best  serve  the  universal  human  interests ;  for  we 
do  not  become  cosmopolitan  in  renouncing  the  ties 
which  bind  us  to  our  own  people.  We  may  roam 
through  all  lands,  but  only  one  place  can  have  given 
us  birth.  It  is  not  the  negation  of  individuality 
which  gives  a  person  a  wide  range  of  sympathy  with 
his  fellows. 

America  has  two  ideas  which  stand  out  distinctly, 
—  individuality  and  freedom.  Personal  and  exclu 
sive  as  they  may  seem  capable,  at  first  glance,  of 
making  us,  their  real  effect  is  to  widen  our  sympa 
thies,  and  to  make  us  the  most  cosmopolitan  people 
the  world  has  ever  known.  Intensely  national,  our 
hopes  embrace  all  lands  and  peoples.  Zealously 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.         335 

American,  nothing  that  is  human  is  indifferent  to  us. 
Sitting  apart,  we  watch  with  sympathetic  interest  the 
movements  of  humanity. 

These  national  qualities  are  in  the  mind  and  the 
writings  of  Emerson.  Concerned  as  we  are  rather 
for  the  individual  than  the  nation,  preferring  that 
persons  shall  have  their  rights  recognized  rather  than 
that  the  nation  shall  be  powerful,  he  has  become  the 
embodiment  of  this  idea,  given  it  a  philosophical, 
moral,  and  religious  interpretation.  It  is  the  thought 
which  finds  constant  expression  in  his  poems,  ad 
dresses,  and  essays  :  it  kindles  his  most  eloquent 
ideas  about  the  future  of  mankind.  Xatioual  and 
yet  cosmopolitan  is  the  America  he  believed  in  so 
earnestly.  It  is  a  higher  type  of  national  being  he 
cherished,  that  finds  its  noblest  memories  and  its 
truest  heroisms  in  the  direction  of  the  advancement 
of  humanity.  Peace,  brotherhood,  and  universal  ad 
vancement  may  give  traditions  and  ideal  hopes. 
Great  memories  may  cluster  about  the  interests  of 
peace  and  freedom  as  about  the  interests  of  war  and 
heroism.  It  is  these  more  peaceful,  more  human, 
more  nobly  sympathetic  interests  to  which  we  give 
ourselves  as  Americans  ;  and  the  ideals  of  the  future 
are  to  be  formed  after  this  type.  The  national  ideal 
will  cease  to  be  selfish  and  exclusive  and  become  hu 
mane  and  attractive.  It  will  take  form  around  the 
thought  of  our  common  humanity,  giving  to  freedom 
and  justice  the  heritage  of  our  best  hopes. 

When  this  new  national  spirit,  based  on  the  idea 


336  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

of  individuality,  freedom,  and  a  common  humanity, 
has  been  fully  developed,  it  will  take  up  the  past  of 
mankind  and  interpret  it  in  harmony  with  its  own 
ideals.  It  will  create  a  new  literary,  artistic,  and 
social  tendency,  which  will  embody  itself  in  forms 
suited  to  its  own  aspirations.  The  influence  of  the 
past  will  still  be  upon  us,  and  we  shall  be  capable  of 
profiting  by  its  lessons ;  but  we  shall  interpret  it  in 
the  light  of  larger  experiences.  None  the  less  will 
it  feed  and  stimulate  the  ideal  life,  but  we  shall  be 
less  under  bondage  to  it.  Around  the  central  thoughts 
animating  the  new  national  life  literature  will  weave 
its  garments  of  beauty. 

A  view  of  nationality  which  recognizes  the  dis 
tinctive  American  type  as  essential,  and  which  is  as 
cosmopolitan  as  the  race,  is  that  to  be  found  in  the 
writings  of  Emerson.  It  is  not  cosmopolitan  in  the 
manner  of  some  of  his  predecessors,  who  teach  that 
the  nation  is  nothing ;  but  he  makes  the  idea  of  a 
universal  humanity  the  very  centre  of  his  conception 
of  nationality.  Attachment  to  our  country  becomes 
the  motive  for  a  recognition  of  all  mankind.  Indi 
viduals  cohere  into  families  in  order  that  they  may 
become  true  individuals,  families  into  communities, 
communities  into  nations,  while  the  family  of  nations 
is  to  include  the  whole  race.  The  nation  remains 
distinct  and  individual  that  it  may  render  a  more 
perfect  service  to  humanity. 

The  broad  and  human  view  is  that  which  appeared 
most  conspicuously  in  Emerson's  Americanism.  He 


EMERSON'S  VIEW  OF  NATIONALITY.         337 

was  an  American  in  no  narrow  and  sectional  spirit ; 
it  was  no  special  spot  of  earth  for  which  he  con 
tended.  He  was  an  idealistic  American,  —  an  Ameri 
can  of  the  soul,  caring  for  freedom,  and  morality,  and 
the  seeing  mind,  more  than  for  Concord  Eiver  or 
Wachusett  Mountain.  An  American  literature  of 
local  description  and  provincial  dialect  would  not 
have  satisfied  his  desire ;  but  that  rather  which  grows 
out  of  the  spirit  of  high  enterprise,  loyalty  of  man  to 
man,  and  the  consciousness  of  soul-freedom.  Faith 
ful  as  he  was  to  what  is  local,  loyal  as  he  was  to  the 
individual,  he  would  have  these  put  in  their  true 
relations  to  the  human  and  universal.  Concord  had 
beauties  of  its  own ;  but  Concord  was  a  part  of  the 
universe.  It  was  worthy  of  study  because  represen 
tative  of  the  whole  ;  it  was  the  whole  fur  which  he 
sought,  the  universal  for  which  he  yearned.  This 
spot  of  earth  is  a  true  indication  of  the  universe. 
The  secrets  of  the  whole  universe  are  to  be  learned 
here.  This  hour  of  time  is  a  true  type  of  eternity ; 
the  loftiest  revelations  of  eternity  may  vision  them 
selves  before  us  now.  "  You  may  run  back,"  Emer 
son  would  say,  "  through  the  ages  and  countries  we 
have  travelled  from,  but  what  you  seek  is  on  this 
spot  and  in  this  time." 

Having  by  the  aid  of  this  conception  made  himself 
sure  of  the  sacredness  of  the  soul  and  of  the  divine 
life  in  Xature,  he  ceased  to  feel  any  exclusive  interest 
in  time  and  place.  Convinced  that  man  is  a  living 
soul,  and  in  contact  with  the  eternal  truth  here  in 


338  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Concord  and  America,  he  turned  to  Africa  and  China 
with  the  same  promise  for  them.  Concord  was  no 
Mecca  to  him;  he  saw  no  special  sacredness  in  its 
flowers,  rivers,  and  ponds.  America  is  not  represented 
by  its  many  kinds  of  climate  and  its  great  variety  of 
scenery,  but  by  its  common  intelligence  and  its  rights 
for  all.  Its  ideal  is  not  that  of  wide-stretching  power, 
but  that  of  a  common  humanity  co-working  for  the 
highest  ends  of  intelligent  moral  beings.  The  true 
America  is  in  the  soul  that  is  free,  intelligent,  and 
aspiring.  The  country  of  man  is  the  genuine  America. 
It  does  not  lie  here  or  there,  but  towards  the  way  of 
hope  and  promise,  where  men  rise  up  to  liberty  and 
justice,  where  they  live  in  the  light  of  the  ideal. 
When  the  serf  is  taught  to  be  his  own  master,  when 
the  slave  is  made  to  know  that  he  is  an  intelligent 
being,  when  justice  speaks  in  clear-toned  voice  the 
rights  of  all,  when  the  ignorant  are  educated  and  the 
vicious  reclaimed,  —  then  America  comes  to  what 
ever  people  to  whom  this  light  has  been  given.  It 
lies  fresh  and  fair  to  the  open  day  wherever  it  may 
be ;  there  is  a  youthful  glow  and  enterprise  within  it, 
and  its  citizens  make  war  no  more,  but  join  their 
hands  in  the  good  deeds  of  peace. 


EMERSO^S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MATURE.      339 


XII. 
EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE. 

BY  WILLIAM  T.   HARRIS. 

THE  eminent  physicist,  Tyndall,  has  told  us  that 
he  considers  Emerson  a  profoundly  religious  influ 
ence.  Emerson  accepted  all  new  discoveries  in  sci 
ence  without  dismay,  and  without  loss  of  reverence 
or  of  faith  in  the  supremacy  of  the  divine  in  the 
world.  This  certainly  is  a  trait  that  belongs  to  a 
religious  nature. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  science,  that  of  its  rela 
tion  to  poetry  or  poetic  art,  that  interests  us  when 
we  take  up  Emerson's  poetry.  It  has  been  supposed 
by  some  that  the  age  of  poetry  is  now  past,  and  no 
longer  possible,  because  of  the  advent  of  modern 
natural  science  and  the  invention  of  labor-saving 
machines.  "  The  Muses  have  fled  and  Nature  is  for 
ever  disenchanted."  If  this  were  true,  the  spiritual 
uses  of  Nature  would  have  become  obsolete.  Nature 
could  not  be  used  as  a  symbol  of  mind  and  a  means 
of  expression  of  spiritual  nature.  An  iron  age  of 
empty  show  and  pretence  would  indeed  be  upon  us ; 
for  no  poetic  tropes  or  metaphors  could  be  found 


340  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

with  which  we  could  express  invisible  nature  by  visi 
ble  images.  If  such  were  used,  they  must  needs  be 
feigned,  —  a  sham  performance  imitating  consciously 
the  Greek  view  of  Nature,  which  was  a  genuine  one. 
An  age  of  hollowness  and  insincerity,  profoundly 
sceptical  of  the  very  existence  of  spiritual  things,  is 
bound  to  appear  when  men  lose  their  insight  into 
the  correspondence  between  the  material  and  spiritual, 
and  cease  to  regard  nature  as  the  type  whose  arche 
type  is  mind.  Accordingly  in  this  epoch  of  prose 
science  and  machinery  an  unusual  interest  attaches 
to  the  work  of  its  poets.  The  original  poet  of  this 
time  is  the  one  that  makes  incursions  into  the  realm 
of  nature,  with  the  aid  of  the  newest  scientific  theo 
ries,  and  is  able  to  discover  spiritual  correspondences 
in  prose  realities,  whether  they  be  cosmic  laws  or 
mere  machines. 

It  is  in  this  important  field  that  Emerson  may 
be  regarded  as  the  poet  of  the  future.  He  sees  in 
their  poetic  aspect  the  generalizations  of  astronomy, 
geology,  arid  biology,  —  the  theories  of  nebular  con 
solidation  and  the  evolution  of  life.  The  essential 
characteristic  of  poetry  is  to  be  found  in  metaphor 
and  personification  rather  than  in  the  forms  of  rhythm 
and  rhyme.  Hebrew  poetry,  for  example,  although 
the  most  sublime  species  of  poetry,  has  no  rhythm 
and  rhyme,  but  only  parallelism  and  correspondence, 
for  its  external  dress.  Much  of  the  so-called  poetry 
lacks  metaphor  and  personification,  although  it  pos 
sesses  the  jingle  of  rhyme  and  its  metres  are  perfect. 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.      341 

Such  writing  lacks  the  poetic  vision  that  sees  the 
invisible  and  spiritual  in  the  visible  and  material. 
Hence  the  attempt  to  use  modern  discoveries  in 
natural  science  for  poetic  matter  has  for  the  most 
part  failed,  by  reason  of  the  lack  of  a  deeper  insight 
which  discerned  their  spiritual  significance. 

Emerson's  poetry  abounds  in  metaphors  taken  from 
the  modern  theories  of  nature.  His  spiritual  vision 
pierces  through  the  prose  hull  to  the  vital  kernel. 

The  freshness  and  wilclness  of  nature  as  depicted 
by  Shakspeare  in  his  lyrics,  such,  for  example,  as 
"  Under  the  greenwood  tree,"  and  "  When  icicles  hang 
by  the  wall,"  may  be  found  in  Emerson's  poems  of 
nature,  —  especially  the  "Woodnotes,"  "May-Day," 
"The  Ehodora,"  "  Hamatreya,"  "  My  Garden,"  "The 
Titmouse,"  and  "  Sea-Shore." 

The  beauty  of  nature  demands  a  certain  neglect 
of  regularity  and  symmetry,  in  order  to  reach  free 
dom  and  gracefulness  by  suggesting  boundless  re 
sources  of  form,  and  emancipation  from  mechanical 
conformity  to  laws  and  types.  There  is  in  this  a 
sort  of  justification  for  Emerson's  apparent  careless 
ness  in  respect  to  metre.  In  the  nature-poems  es 
pecially  there  is  a  suggestion  of  the  transcendency 
over  all  mechanism  which  we  always  see  when  we 
look  at  the  world  in  masses  and  put  by  our  analyti 
cal  spectacles  of  species  and  genera  and  laws.  How 
restful  and  refreshing  are  the  glimpses  of  genuine 
untamed  nature  offered  us  in  Shakspeare's  poem  just 
now  alluded  to ! 


342  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  Under  the  greenwood  tree 

Who  loves  to  lie  with  me, 

And  turn  his  merry  note 

Unto  the  sweet  bird's  throat,  — 
Come  hither,  come  hither,  come  hither : 

Here  shall  he  see 

No  enemy 
But  winter  and  rough  weather  ! " 

Here  is  abrupt  transition  of  rhythm  that  suggests 
freedom  from  conventionality.  The  resources  of 
poetry  are  many  and  adequate.  One  may  not  expect 
to  find  all  moods  and  all  subjects  fittingly  expressed 
in  one  species  of  poetry.  While  one  range  of  sub 
jects  demands  strict  sequence  of  rhyme  and  perfect 
measure  of  rhythm,  another  range,  involving  sud 
den  flashes  of  insight  and  vast  metamorphoses  of 
objects,  may  require  altogether  different  treatment. 
In  art,  the  deepest  law  is  the  unity  of  subject  and 
form. 

Merlin's  idea  of  the  kind  of  poetry  for  the  wizard 
bard  was  this,  according  to  Emerson,  — . 

"  Great  is  the  art, 
Great  be  the  manners,  of  the  bard. 
He  shall  not  his  brain  encumber 
With  the  coil  of  rhythm  and  number  ; 
But,  leaving  rule  and  pale  forethought, 
He  shall  aye  climb 
For  his  rhyme. 

'  Pass  in,  pass  in,'  the  angels  say, 
'  In  to  the  upper  doors, 
Nor  count  compartments  of  the  floors, 
But  mount  to  paradise 
By  the  stairway  of  surprise.'  " 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       343 

"  Machine  poetry  "  is  over-careful  of  its  metre  and 
rhyme.  Those  who  "  write  poetry  fit  to  put  round 
frosted  cake,"  —  among  whom  Emerson  places  the 
poets  of  the  epoch  of  Queen  Anne, — seldom  take 
any  flights  into  the  realm  of  the  inspired  bard.  They 
do  not  conquer  any  new  realm  of  nature,  and  reduce 
it  by  trope  or  personification  to  the  symbol  of  spirit 
ual  nature.  They  use  only  the  old  conventional 
metaphors.  But  the  realm  of  true  poetry,  like  "  the 
potent  plane  of  Demons,  spreads  " 

"  Close,  close  to  men, 
Like  undulating  layer  of  air, 
Eight  above  their  heads." 

The  brave  poet  may  surely  ascend  into  it  if  he  is 
always  true  to  his  aspiration. 

In  his  poem  "  Woodnotes  "  Emerson  sings  the  song 
of  the  pine-tree ;  not  a  song  of  the  idle  fancies  of  the 
poet  on  beholding  it,  but  the  song  of  the  thoughtful 
naturalist,  who  is  above  all  a  poet.  He  sees  in  the  pine- 
tree  the  pioneer  of  vegetation,  conquering  the  drifting 
sand-heaps,  binding  together  the  soil  by  its  roots  and 
covering  it  with  a  layer  of  leaves  and  branches,  by  and 
by  to  become  vegetable  mould,  in  which  all  plants 
may  flourish.  After  the  pine  come  other  trees,  and 
then  animals,  and  then  all  is  ready  for  man. 

"  Whether  is  better  the  gift  or  the  donor  ? 
*  Come  to  me,' 
Quoth  the  pine-tree, 
'  I  am  the  giver  of  honor. 


344  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

'   My  garden  is  the  cloven  rock, 
And  my  manure  the  snow; 
And  drifting  sand-heaps  feed  my  stock, 
In  summer's  scorching  glow.'  " 

He  proceeds  to  interpret  like  another  Merlin  the 
low  murmur  with  which  the  pine  sings  when  the 
wind  swells, — 

"  And  the  countless  leaves  of  the  pine  are  strings 
Tuned  to  the  lay  the  wood-god  sings." 

Here  is  the  prose  doctrine  of  development  turned 
into  poetry :  — 

"  To  the  open  air  it  sings 
Sweet  the  genesis  of  things, 
Of  tendency  through  endless  ages." 

This  is  the  tendency  of  which  he  speaks  when  he 
says,  in  another  place,  — 

"And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 

The  oracle  of  the  pine  continues,  and  names  the 
great  epochs  in  the  "  genesis  of  things,"  and  that 
endless  "tendency" 

"  Of  star-dust,  and  star-pilgrimages, 
Of  rounded  worlds,  of  space  and  time. 
Of  the  old  flood's  subsiding  slime, 
Of  chemic  matter,  force,  and  form, 
Of  poles  and  powers,  cold,  wet,  and  warm  : 
The  rushing  metamorphosis 
Dissolving  all  that  fixture  is, 
Melts  things  that  be  to  things  that  seem, 
And  solid  nature  to  a  dream." 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       345 

In  "  My  Garden "  (around  Walden  Pond)  he  de 
scribes  how  the  deluge  ploughed  and  laid  the  terraces 
one  by  one ;  how  it  flowed  away  at  a  later  period, 
leaving  them  to  bleach  and  dry  in  the  sun ;  how  the 
wind  and  birds  sowed  Walden  beach.  In  "  Sea- 
Shore  "  he  makes  the  chiding  sea  describe  its  deeds. 
It  pounds  with  its  hammer  the  rocky  coast,  smiting 
Andes  into  dust,  strewing  its  bed,  and  in  another 
age  rebuilding  a  continent  of  better  men. 

"Then  I  unbar  the  doors  :  my  paths  lead  out 
The  exodus  of  nations  :  I  disperse 
Men  to  all  shores  that  front  the  hoary  main." 

In  "  Merlin "  he  has  laid  down  his  doctrine  of 
poetry  in  verse.  In  his  prose  essay  on  "  Poetry  and 
Imagination  "  lie  says  that  the  "  Poet  discovers  that 
what  men  value  as  substances  have  a  higher  value 
as  symbols ;  that  nature  is  the  immense  shadow  of 
man."  So  "  Poetry  is  the  perpetual  endeavor  to 
express  the  spirit  of  the  thing ;  to  pass  the  brute 
body  and  search  the  life  and  reason  which  cause  it 
to  exist."  "  Xature  itself  is  a  vast  trope,  and  all 
particular  natures  are  tropes." 

In  Emerson's  first  published  work  we  find  an 
attempt  to  make  an  inventory  of  the  various  aspects 
of  the  world  in  time  and  space.  His  most  important 
principle  reached  is  this:  — 

"  It  is  a  sufficient  account  of  that  appearance  we  call 
the  world,  that  God  will  teach  a  human  mind,  and  so 
makes  it  the  receiver  of  a  certain  number  of  congruent 


346  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

sensations,  which  we  call  the  sun  and  moon,  man  and 
woman,  house  and  trade." 

Considering  the  universe  as  composed  of  nature 
and  soul,  he  defines  the  former :  "  Strictly  speaking, 
all  that  is  separate  from  us,  all  which  philosophy  dis 
tinguishes  as  the  NOT  ME,  that  is,  both  nature  and 
art,  all  other  men  and  my  own  body,  must  be  ranked 
under  this  name,  NATURE."  Four  uses  include  the 
purposes  served  by  objects  of  nature.  These  are  com 
modity,  beauty,  language,  discipline. 

Under  commodity  we  find  what  is  useful  for  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter, —  the  body's  wants.  Besides 
this  there  is  the  co-operation  of  one's  fellow-men. 
"The  private  poor  man  hath  cities,  ships,  canals, 
bridges,  built  for  him.  He  goes  to  the  post-office, 
and  the  human  race  run  on  his  errands ;  to  the  book 
shop,  and  the  human  race  read  and  write  all  that 
happens,  for  him."  But  commodity  is  not  a  final 
end :  "  This  mercenary  benefit  is  one  which  has  re 
spect  to  a  farther  good.  A  man  is  fed,  not  that  he 
may  be  fed,  but  that  he  may  work." 

Nature  serves  a  nobler  want  than  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter;  namely,  the  love  of  beauty.  The  as 
pects  of  beauty  he  distributes  under  three  heads : 
(1)  delight ;  (2)  as  "  the  mark  God  sets  on  virtue ; " 
(3)  as  tributary  to  self-knowledge.  "  A  work  of  art 
is  an  abstract,  or  epitome,  of  the  world ;  it  is  the 
result  or  expression  of  Nature  in  miniature.  The 
production  of  a  work  of  art  throws  a  light  upon  the 
mystery  of  humanity." 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.      347 

That  nature  serves  man  in  a  still  more  indispen 
sable  way,  for  self-knowledge,  not  through  beauty 
but  directly  through  language,  is  obvious.  "  Xature 
is  the  vehicle  of  thought,  and  in  a  simple,  double, 
and  threefold  degree  :  (1)  words  in  their  literal  sense » 
(2)  in  their  figurative  sense ;  (3)  Xature  as  a  whole 
being  the  symbol  of  spirit. 

"  Every  natural  fact  is  a  symbol  of  some  spiritual  i 
fact."  Here  is  the  key  to  the  poetic  use  of  Xature.  j 
"  Man  is  conscious  of  a  universal  soul  within  or  be 
hind  his  individual  life,  wherein,  as  in  a  firmament, 
the  natures  of  justice,  truth,  love,  freedom,  arise  and 
shine."  "  These  are  not  the  dreams  of  a  few  poets 
here  and  there ;  but  man  is  an  analogist,  and  studies 
relations  in  all  objects.  He  is  placed  in  the  centre 
of  being,  and  a  ray  of  relation  passes  from  every 
other  being  to  him."  In  speaking  of  the  relation  of 
language  to  people  whose  life  is  mere  use  and  wont, 
and  to  secondary  lights  in  literature,  he  very  strik 
ingly  remarks :  — 

"  Hundreds  of  writers  may  be  found  in  every  long- 
civilized  nation  who  for  a  short  time  believe,  and  make 
others  believe,  that  they  see  and  utter  truths,  who  do  not 
of  themselves  clothe  one  thought  in  its  natural  garment, 
but  who  feed  unconsciously  on  the  language  created  by 
the  primary  writers  of  the  country,  —  those,  namely,  who 
hold  primarily  on  nature." 

Thirdly,  Xature  as  a  whole  is  the  symbol  of  the 
soul.  "The  visible  creation  is  the  terminus  or  the 


348  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

circumference  of  the  invisible  world."  "  There  seems 
to  be  a  necessity  in  spirit  to  manifest  itself  in  mate 
rial  forms ;  and  day  and  night,  river  and  storm,  beast 
and  bird,  acid  and  alkali,  pre-exist  in  necessary  ideas 
in  the  mind  of  God,  and  are  what  they  are  by  virtue 
of  preceding  affections  in  the  world  of  spirit." 

Coming  to  the  fourth  use  of  Nature,  discipline,  he 
finds  this  to  include  all  the  others.  "  Nature  is  a 
discipline  of  the  understanding  in  intellectual  truths." 
It  trains  his  common-sense  year  after  year  by  a  con 
tinual  reproduction  of  annoyances,  inconveniences, 
dilemmas.  Debt  and  credit  perform  the  same  good 
office.  Nature  disciplines  the  will.  "It  offers  all 
its  kingdoms  to  man  as  the  raw  material  which  he 
may  mould  into  what  is  useful."  "  One  after  another 
his  victorious  thought  comes  up  with  and  reduces  all 
things  until  the  world  becomes  at  last  only  a  realized 
will,  —  the  double  of  man." 

Moreover,  everything  has  a  moral  aspect.  "All 
things  with  which  we  deal  preach  to  us.  .  .  .  The 
chaff  and  the  wheat,  weeds  and  plants,  blight,  rain, 
insects,  sun,  —  it  is  a  sacred  emblem  from  the  first 
furrow  of  spring  to  the  last  stack  which  the  snow  of 
winter  overtakes  in  the  fields." 

From  this  idea  of  discipline  in  morals  Emerson 
finds  a  transition  to  idealism  through  the  thought  of 
the  "unity  of  nature,  —  the  unity  in  variety  which 
meets  us  everywhere."  /In  fact,  we  find  everywhere 
in  this  remarkable  essay  what  may  be  called  a  dia 
lectic,  whereby  one  part  joins  to  the  next  by  a  sort 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       349 

of  natural  growth.  Thus  commodity  becomes  beauty 
through  the  idea  of  all  society  existing  for  the  well- 
being  of  each  member  of  it,  —  the  whole  existing  in 
the  part  manifests  beauty.  So,  too,  beauty  becomes 
language  in  its  phase  of  presenting  self-knowledge. 
Language  in  its  highest  form,  wherein  Nature  as  a 
whole  reflects  spirit  as  a  whole,  reveals  the  end  of 
Nature  as  a  discipline,  and  we  reach  an  ultimate 
unity. 

"  So  intimate  is  this  unity  that  it  is  easily  seen ; 
it  lies  under  the  undermost  garment  of  nature,  and 
betrays  its  source  in  universal  spirit." 

He  finds  manifestations  of  this  central  unity  (a)  in 
the  fact  that  every  universal  truth  implies  or  sup 
poses  every  other  truth ;  (&)  "  an  action  is  the  perfec 
tion  and  publication  of  thought,  and  a  right  action 
seems  to  fill  the  eye  and  to  be  related  to  all  Nature ; " 
(c)  every  object  in  Nature  suggests  some  other. 

But  "  words  and  actions  are  not  attributes  of  brute 
nature.  They  introduce  us  to  the  human  form  of 
which  all  other  organizations  appear  to  be  degrada 
tions."  From  this  he  would  conclude  as  to  the  form 
of  the  "central  unity"  of  nature.  The  basis  of  all 
must  be  truth  and  virtue.  Human  forms  "  are  in 
comparably  the  richest  informations  of  the  power 
and  order  that  lie  at  the  heart  of  things."  Notwith 
standing  the  defects  of  humanity,  men  and  women 
"  all  rest  like  fountain-pipes  on  the  unfathomed  sea 
of  thought  and  virtue,  whereto  they  alone  of  all  or 
ganizations  are  the  entrances."  Thus  he  believes 


350  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Titian  to  hold  a  unique  place  in  the  world,  he  alone 
4  having  the  form  of  the  highest  principle  of  nature, 
(  and  alone  having  access  to  that  principle. 

In  the  sixth  chapter  of  "  Nature  "  Emerson  comes 
to  consider  idealism  as  the  view  of  the  world  result 
ing  from  the  foregoing  contemplations.  All  parts  of 
nature  conspire  to  this  one  end  of  discipline,  and  so 
suggest  a  doubt  whether  this  object  be  not  the  sole 
purpose  of  the  world.  Are  not  things  painted  on 
the  firmament  of  the  soul  rather  than  spread  out 
there  in  space  ?  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  test  the 
authenticity  of  the  report  of  our  senses. 

"Whilst  we  acquiesce  entirely  in  the  permanence  of 
natural  laws,  the  question  of  the  absolute  existence  of  Na 
ture  still  remains  open.  It  is  the  uniform  effect  of  culture 
on  the  human  mind  not  to  shake  our  faith  in  the  stability 
of  particular  phenomena,  as  of  heat,  water,  azote;  but  to 
lead  us  to  regard  nature  as  phenomenon,  not  a  substance ; 
to  esteem  nature  as  an  accident  and  an  effect." 

He  gives  an  account  of  the  rise  of  this  idealistic 
point  of  view  in  psychology.  (1)  The  senses  have  a 
sort  of  instinctive  belief  in  the  absolute  existence  of 
Nature  ;  (2)  so  too  has  the  understanding ;  (3)  but  rea 
son  sees  through  outlines  and  surfaces  into  causes  and 
spirits  beneath.  "  The  best  moments  of  life  are  these 
delicious  awakenings  of  the  higher  powers,  and  the 
reverential  withdrawing  of  Nature  before  its  God." 

He  proceeds  to  make  a  sort  of  inventory  of  the  facts 
jthat  conspire  to  make  the  reason  an  idealist. 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       351 

(1)  A  change  of  view  changes  the  object,  and  by 
this  most  common  mechanical  means  Xature  suggests 
the  difference  between  the  observer  and  the  spectacle, 
—  between  man  and  Nature.     This  may  be  called 
the  idealistic  lesson  of  spatial  perspective.     But  the 
perspective  of  time,  too,  has  its  idealistic  lesson. 

(2)  The  poet  in  a  higher  manner  communicates  this 
lesson.    He  transfigures  all  material  objects,  and  uses 
matter  as  the  symbol  of  his  heroic  passion.     "  He  un 
fixes  the  land  and  the  sea,  makes  them  revolve  around 
the  axis  of  his  primary  thought,  and  disposes  them 
anew.     He  invests  dust  and  stones  with  humanity, 
and  makes  them   the  words  of   reason."     He  gives 
an  extended  application  of  this  view  of  the  poet  to 
Shakspeare,  quoting  especially  from  the  Sonnets. 

(3)  "  The  philosopher,  not  less  than  the  poet,  postpones 
the  apparent  order  and  relations  of  things  to  the  empire 
of  thought." 

"  It  is,  both  with  the  poet  and  the  philosopher,  a  spirit 
ual  life  imparted  to  nature ;  that  the  solid  seeming  block 
of  matter  has  been  pervaded  and  dissolved  by  a  thought ; 
that  this  feeble  human  being  has  penetrated  the  vast 
masses  of  nature  with  an  informing  soul,  and  recognized 
itself  in  their  harmony,  —  that  is,  seized  their  law.  In 
physics,  when  this  is  attained,  the  memory  disburthens 
itself  of  its  cumbrous  catalogues  of  particulars,  and  carries 
centuries  of  observation  in  a  single  formula." 

(4)  If  the  presuppositions  of  science  are  idealistic, 
so,  too,  are  its  results.      "  It  fastens  the  attention 
upon  immortal  necessary  uncreated  natures, — that  is, 


352  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

upon  ideas ;  and  in  their  presence  we  feel  that  the 
outward  circumstance  is  a  dream  and  a  shade.  Whilst 
we  wait  in  this  Olympus  of  gods  we  think  of  na 
ture  as  an  appendix  to  the  soul.  We  ascend  into 
their  region,  and  know  that  these  are  the  thoughts 
of  the  Supreme  Being." 

Although  this  region  of  divine  ideas  is  accessible 
to  few  men  as  a  matter  of  science  or  philosophy,  yet, 
says  Emerson,  "  all  men  are  capable  of  being  raised 
by  piety,  or  by  passion,  into  their  region."  In  the 
company  of  such  ideas  the  mind  sees  its  immortality 
as  a  necessary  fact. 

(5)  Finally,  the  ground  of  the  doctrine  of  idealism 
is  to  be  found  in  religion  and  ethics.  He  defines  and 
distinguishes  the  two  provinces  ;  both  agree  in  that 
their  function  is  "  the  practice  of  ideas,  or  the  intro 
duction  of  ideas  into  life."  "  Ethics  and  religion 
differ  herein:  that  ethics  is  the  system  of  human 
duties  commencing  from  man ;  religion,  from  God. 
Eeligion  includes  the  personality  of  God  ;  ethics  does 
not."  Here,  in  this  earliest  essay  of  Emerson,  how 
completely  is  expressed  the  doctrine  of  the  person 
ality  of  God  and  the  moral  and  intellectual  character 
of  his  Being ! 

|  (jKeligion  is  for  the  uneducated  mind  what  phi 
losophy  is  for  the  cultured,  j  "It  does  that  for  the 
unschooled  which  philosophy  does  for  Berkeley  and 
Vyasa.  The  first  and  last  lesson  of  religion  is,  '  The 
things  that  are  seen  are  temporal;  the  things  that 
are  unseen  are  eternal.' " 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       353 

While  he  loves  nature,  therefore,  with  a  love 
amounting  to  a  passion,  Emerson  announces  ideal 
ism  as  indicating  the  "  true  position  of  nature  in  re 
gard  to  man,  wherein  to  establish  man  all  right 
education  tends,  as  the  ground  which  to  attain  is 
the  object  of  human  life,  —  that  is,  of  man's  con 
nection  with  nature." 

With  this  theory  of  Xature  the  soul  "  sees  the 
world  in  God  and  beholds  the  whole  circle  of  persons 
and  tilings,  of  actions  and  events,  of  country  and  re 
ligion,  not  as  painfully  accumulated,  atom  after  atom, 
act  after  act,  in  an  aged,  creeping  past,  but  as  one 
vast  picture  which  God  paints  on  the  instant  eter 
nity,  for  the  contemplation  of  the  soul." 

Hence  the  soul  "  sees  something  more  in  Chris 
tianity  than  the  scandals  of  ecclesiastical  history  or 
the  niceties  of  criticism.  ...  It  accepts  from  God  the 
phenomenon  as  it  finds  it,  —  as  the  pure  and  awful 
form  of  religion  in  the  world." 

In  the  six  chapters  that  are  devoted  to  this  dis 
cussion  we  have  progressed  by  a  natural  growth  of 
the  subject  —  by  what  would  be  called  a  dialecti 
cal  evolution  of  the  idea  of  nature  —  to  the  doc 
trine  of  the  first  principle  of  the  world  as  a  personal 
being.  In  the  seventh  chapter,  to  which  we  have  / 
^arrived,  this  result  is  made  a  special  theme.  It  is 
\the  doctrine  of  Spirit  as  the  absolute.  "Idealism  is 
a  hypothesis  to  account  for  nature  by  other  prin 
ciples  than  those  of  carpentry  and  chemistry."  But 
as  merely  negative  it  is  a  defective  view.  "  If  it  only 

23 


354  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

deny  the  existence  of  matter,  it  does  not  satisfy  the 
demands  of  the  spirit.  It  leaves  God  out  of  me.  It- 
leaves  me  in  the  splendid  labyrinth  of  my  percep 
tions,  to  wander  without  end." 

Idealism,  then,  is  only  a  useful  introduction  to  the 
positive  doctrine  of  spirit.  In  answering  the  ques 
tions,  Whence  is  matter,  and  whereto  ?  we  reach 
this  positive  doctrine.  "  The  world  proceeds  from  the 
same  spirit  as  the  body  of  man.  It  is  a  remoter 
and  inferior  incarnation  of  God,  —  a  projection  of 
God  in  the  unconscious." 

Up  to  this  point  the  doctrine  of  nature  has  been 
what  we  may  call  that  of  evolution,  or  at  least  in 
harmony  with  the  modern  doctrine  of  that  name. 
Indeed,  there  is  prefixed  to  the  essay  one  of  those 
oracular  pieces  of  verse  that  Emerson  often  used  to 
sum  up  his  prose  essays.  The  key-note  which  ex 
presses  the  theme  sounds  forth  :  — 

"  A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings  ; 
The  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose  ; 
And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 

Here  is  the  doctrine  of  evolution  substantially 
set  forth.  It  does  not  say  that  the  lower  produces 
the  higher.  Nor  does  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  when 
rightly  understood.  In  saying  "there  is  a  survival 
of  the  fittest,"  it  says  that  mind  is  the  goal  of  na 
ture.  The  farther  from  mind,  the  farther  from  sur 
vival.  | 'The  chaotic  and  inorganic  is  an  unstable 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       355 

equilibrium  which  is  continually  changing  and  at 
tempting  some  new  form.^  But  individuality  be 
gins  when  nature  ascends  to  mind,  and  the  power 
of  self-preservation  increases  with  the  increase  of 
mind.  Does  not  this  point  clearly  towards  the  su 
premacy  of  mind,  if  nature  moves  always  to  attain 
the  form  of  intelligence  ?  That  which  comprehends 
itself  and  the  world,  and  is  able  to  act  with  directive 
intelligence,  is  able  to  conquer  all  other  beings  and 
make  all  serve  him.  Evolution  of  the  fittest,  there 
fore,  points  to  man  or  spiritual  being  as  the  final 
cause  of  nature.  All  beings  are  on  their  way  thither. 
In  the  result  of  the  process  of  nature  one  may  read 
the  character  of  the  supreme  first  principle  revealed 
in  it.  If  nature  is  so  constituted  that  left  to  its 
own  laws  it  does  evolve  and  can  evolve  only  rational 
creatures  as  the  fittest,  evidently  the  absolute  Being 
must  be  rational.  Here  is  the  view  of  nature  that 
Emerson  had  reached  and  announced  in  his  own 
doctrine  of  evolution  before  1836.  AVhile  it  is  sub 
stantially  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  it  is  spiritual 
evolution  ;  being  an  insight  into  the  fact  that  nature 
reveals  spirit  as  its  final  cause,  and  into  the  fact  that 
the  universe  is  not  alien  to  man,  but  throughout  the 
projection  of  a  being  like  man,  or  divine-human. 

Turning  from  the  contemplation  of  evolution  to 
the  final  chapter  of  this  treatise  on  "Xature,"  we 
come  to  the  question  of  "  Prospects."  In  the  eighth 
chapter  we  rise  to  take  a  survey  of  the  whole. 
"Prospects"  shall  mean  both  history  and  prophecy. 


356  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

He  unfolds  in  this  chapter  an  altogether  new  and 
surprising  theory  of  the  world,  —  a  theory  that  one 
would  pronounce  incompatible  with  the  evolutional 
theory  developed  thus  far.  It  is  no  less  than  the 
theory  of  "  Lapse,"  or  Descent  of  the  Soul,  somewhat 
like  that  found  in  the  fourth  Ennead  of  Plotinus. 

There  are,  indeed,  a  few  notes  in  the  preceding 
chapter  on  "  Spirit,"  at  the  close,  which  form  the 
transition  to  this  remote  doctrine  of  Lapse.  The 
inadequacy  or  imperfection  of  the  individual  is  the 
connecting  link.  "As  we  degenerate,  the  contrast 
between  us  and  our  house  is  more  evident.  We  are 
as  much  strangers  in  nature  as  we  are  aliens  from 
God.  We  do  not  understand  the  notes  of  birds. 
The  fox  and  the  deer  run  away  from  us  ;  the  bear 
and  the  tiger  rend  us.  We  do  not  know  the  uses  of 
more  than  a  few  plants,  as  corn  and  the  apple,  the 
potato  and  the  vine." 

How  do  we  reconcile  this  inadequacy  with  the  posi 
tive  doctrine  of  spirit?  This  had  been  stated  thus: 

"  We  learn  that  the  highest  is  present  to  the  soul  of 
man  ;  that  the  dread  universal  essence,  which  is  not  wis 
dom,  or  love,  or  beauty,  or  power,  but  all  in  one  and  each 
entirely,  is  that  for  which  all  things  exist,  and  that  by 
which  they  are ;  that  spirit  creates ;  that  behind  nature, 
throughout  nature,  spirit  is  present ;  one  and  not  com 
pound,  it  does  not  act  upon  us  from  without,  —  that  is, 
in  space  and  time,  —  but  spiritually,  or  through  ourselves ; 
therefore  that  spirit  —  that  is,  the  Supreme  Being  —  does 
not  build  up  nature  around  us,  but  puts  it  forth  through 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.      357 

us  as  the  life  of  the  tree  puts  forth  new  branches  and 
leaves  through  the  pores  of  the  old.  .  .  .  Man  has  ac 
cess  to  the  entire  mind  of  the  Creator,  and  is  himself  the 
creator  of  the  finite." 

If  man  is  the  creator  of  the  finite,  then  all  imper 
fect  beings  have  arisen  through  his  agency.  From 
this  the  doctrine  of  Lapse  is  easily  deduced.  But 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution  does  not  account  for  the 
existence  of  lower  orders  of  being  by  supposing  a 
lapse,  or  degeneration,  of  higher  beings.  It  supposes 
that  an  All-Good  Highest  Being  desires  to  share  his 
blessedness  with  creatures,  and  therefore  creates  them 
by  an  eternal  process,  giving  them  the  possibility  of 
developing  by  freedom  into  all  knowledge  and  good 
ness.  All  lower  and  lowest  creatures  belong  to  the 
process  necessary  in  the  Divine  Wisdom  for  creating 
beings  with  free  individuality.  Such  free  individu 
ality  must  be  reached  by  the  exercise  of  will  power. 
Natural  selection  involves  this  exercise  of  such  rudi 
ments  of  will  and  intellect  as  belong  to  lowest  organ 
isms.  Arrived  at  man,  individuality  is  reached  that 
can  know  universal  truth,  and  will  universal  good; 
and  thus  the  final  type  is  attained. 

As  the  view  of  evolution  here  described  makes 
nature  a  process  of  creating  new  spirits,  and  thus  of 
increasing  the  number  of  blessed  beings,  it  is  thor 
oughly  optimistic  in  its  character.  The  other  view, 
that  explains  nature  by  the  fall  of  spirits  from  an 
Eden  of  blessedness  or  by  a  lapse  from  holiness,  is, 
on  the  contrary,  pessimistic. 


358  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

With  these  suggestions  we  turn  to  the  most  impor 
tant  part  of  the  final  chapter,  which  he  introduces 
with  the  following  words  :  — 

"  I  shall  therefore  conclude  this  essay  with  some  tradi 
tions  of  man  and  Nature  which  a  certain  poet  sang  to  me ; 
and  which,  as  they  have  always  been  in  the  world,  and 
perhaps  reappear  to  every  hard,  may  be  both  in  history 
and  prophecy." 

Either  because  he  wishes  to  indicate  that  the 
theory  is  one  delivered  to  him  by  tradition,  and  one 
which  he  has  not  fully  verified  in  his  own  intuitions, 
or  because  he  has  a  feeling  of  the  discrepance  be 
tween  this  theory  and  that  of  evolution  already 
approved,  he  calls  it  "  some  traditions/'  and  intimates 
that  he  received  it  from  "  a  certain  poet/'  whom  he 
quotes  or  feigns  to  quote.  Note  especially  the  differ 
ence  in  style  between  the  foregoing  essay  and  these 
"traditions."  There  is  a  sort  of  poetic  rhythm  in 
the  latter,  and  a  sonorous  balance  of  sentences 
quite  in  contrast  to  the  epigrammatic  style  of  the 
remainder  of  the  treatise  :  — 

"  The  foundations  of  man  are  not  in  matter,  but  in 
spirit ;  but  the  element  of  spirit  is  eternity.  To  it,  there 
fore,  the  longest  series  of  events,  the  oldest  chronologies, 
are  young  and  recent.  In  the  cycle  of  the  universal  man, 
from  whom  the  known  individuals  proceed,  centuries  are 
points,  and  all  history  is  but  the  epoch  of  one  degra 
dation. 

"  We  distrust  and  deny  inwardly  our  sympathy  with 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.      359 

nature.  We  own  and  disown  our  relation  to  it,  by  turns. 
We  are,  like  Nebuchadnezzar,  dethroned,  bereft  of  reason, 
and  eating  grass  like  an  ox.  But  who  can  set  limits  to 
the  remedial  force  of  spirit? 

"  A  man  is  a  god  in  ruins.  When  men  are  innocent, 
life  shall  be  longer,  and  shall  pass  into  the  immortal  as 
gently  as  we  awake  from  dreams.  Now,  the  world  would 
be  insane  and  rabid  if  these  disorganizations  should  last 
for  hundreds  of  years.  It  is  kept  in  check  by  death  and 
infancy.  Infancy  is  the  perpetual  Messiah,  which  comes 
into  the  arms  of  fallen  men,  and  pleads  with  them  to  re 
turn  to  paradise. 

"  Man  is  the  dwarf  of  himself.  Once  he  was  permeated 
and  dissolved  by  spirit.  He  filled  nature  with  his  over 
flowing  currents.  Out  from  him  sprang  the  sun  and 
moon,  —  from  man  the  sun,  from  woman  the  moon.  The 
laws  of  his  mind,  the  periods  of  his  actions,  externized 
themselves  into  day  and  night,  into  the  year  and  the  sea 
sons.  But  having  made  for  himself  this  huge  shell,  his 
waters  retired  ;  he  no  longer  fills  the  veins  and  veinlets ; 
he  is  shrunk  to  a  drop.  He  sees  that  the  structure  still 
fits  him,  but  fits  him  colossally.  Say,  rather,  once  it 
fitted  him,  now  it  corresponds  to  him  from  far  and  on 
high.  He  adores  timidly  his  own  work.  Now  is  man 
the  follower  of  the  sun,  and  woman  the  follower  of  the 
moon.  Yet  sometimes  he  starts  in  his  slumber,  and  won 
ders  at  himself  and  his  house,  and  muses  strangely  at  the 
resemblance  betwixt  him  and  it.  He  perceives  that  if  his 
law  is  still  paramount,  if  still  he  have  elemental  power, 
if  his  word  is  sterling  yet  in  nature,  it  is  not  conscious 
power,  it  is  not  inferior  but  superior  to  his  will.  It  is  In 
stinct.  Thus  my  Orphic  poet  sang." 


360  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

He  comments  on  these  oracles  in  his  former  sober 
vein :  "  At  present  man  applies  to  nature  but  half 
his  force.  He  works  on  the  world  with  his  under 
standing  alone."  Apparently  commenting  on  the 
passage  beginning,  "  Yet  sometimes  he  starts  in  his 
slumber/'  he  continues :  "  Meantime,  in  the  thick 
darkness  there  are  not  wanting  gleams  of  a  better 
light,  —  occasional  examples  of  the  action  of  man 
upon  nature  with  his  entire  force,  —  with  reason  as 
well  as  understanding."  Ancient  miracles,  the  his 
tory  of  Christ,  prayer,  eloquence,  and  the  like,  occur 
to  him.  Far  more  profound,  and  in  harmony  with  his 
optimism  and  evolution,  is  the  following  :  — 

"  The  ruin  or  the  blank  that  we  see  when  we  look  at 
nature  is  in  our  own  eye.  The  axis  of  vision  is  not  co 
incident  with  the  axis  of  things,  and  so  they  appear  not 
transparent  but  opaque.  The  reason  why  the  world  lacks 
unity,  and  lies  in  broken  heaps,  is  because  man  is  dis 
united  with  himself.  .  .  .  When  a  faithful  thinker,  reso 
lute  to  detach  every  object  from  personal  relations  and  see 
it  in  the  light  of  thought,  shall,  at  the  same  time,  kindle 
science  with  the  fire  of  the  holiest  affections,  then  will 
God  go  forth  anew  into  the  creation." 

He  returns  to  the  "  Orphic  "  poet,  and  closes  his 
book  with  the  following  quotation :  — 

"  Nature  is  not  fixed,  but  fluid.  Spirit  alters,  moulds, 
makes  it.  The  immobility  or  bruteness  of  nature  is  the 
absence  of  spirit ;  to  pure  spirit  it  is  fluid,  it  is  volatile, 
it  is  obedient.  Every  spirit  builds  itself  a  house  ;  and  be 
yond  its  house  a  world  ;  and  beyond  its  world  a  heaven. 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       361 

"  Know,  then,  that  the  world  exists  for  you.  For  you  is 
the  phenomenon  perfect.  What  we  are  that  only  can  we 
see.  All  that  Adam  had,  all  that  Caesar  could,  you  have 
and  can  do.  Adam  called  his  house  heaven  and  earth, 
Caesar  called  his  house  Borne ;  you  perhaps  call  yours  a 
cobbler's  trade,  a  hundred  acres  of  ploughed  land,  or  a 
scholar's  garret.  Yet,  line  for  line  and  point  for  point, 
your  dominion  is  as  great  as  theirs,  though  without  fine 
names.  Build,  therefore,  your  own  world.  As  fast  as 
you  conform  your  life  to  the  pure  idea  in  your  mind,  that 
will  unfold  its  great  proportions.  A  correspondent  revolu 
tion  in  things  will  attend  the  influx  of  the  spirit.  So  fast 
will  disagreeable  appearances,  swine,  spiders,  snakes,  pests, 
madhouses,  prisons,  enemies,  vanish ;  they  are  temporary, 
and  shall  be  seen  no  more.  The  sordor  and  filths  of  na 
ture  the  sun  shall  dry  up  and  the  wind  exhale.  As  when 
the  summer  comes  from  the  south,  the  snow-banks  melt, 
and  the  face  of  the  earth  becomes  green  before  it,  so  shall 
the  advancing  spirit  create  its  ornaments  along  its  path, 
and  carry  with  it  the  beauty  it  visits,  and  the  song 
which  enchants  it ;  it  shall  draw  beautiful  faces,  warm 
hearts,  wise  discourse,  and  heroic  acts,  around  its  way, 
until  evil  is  no  more  seen.  The  kingdom  of  man  over 
nature,  which  cometh  not  with  observation,  —  a  dominion 
such  as  now  is  beyond  his  dream  of  God,  —  he  shall  enter 
without  more  wonder  than  the  blind  man  feels  who  is 
gradually  restored  to  perfect  sight." 

This  form  of  the  Lapse  differs  from  the  Oriental 
tradition  of  it,  found  in  Xeoplatonism  and  Gnosti 
cism,  in  having  two  forms  of  paradise,  —  a  past  and  a 
future.  Since  the  soul  lapsed  from  a  past  perfection, 


362  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

how  can  it  be  assured  against  a  future  lapse  if  it 
recovers  its  state  once  more  ?  More  especially,  how 
can  it  recover  at  all  ? 

The  inconsistency  of  Asiatic  philosophy  ever  re 
appears  in  the  mysticism  of  the  Occident.  But  this 
special  form  of  it,  —  one  is  piqued  to  ask  :  Does  it 
belong  to  some  earlier  studies  of  Emerson  which 
marked  his  first  insights  into  Plato's  Phsedrus,  or  the 
Enneads  of  Plotinus,  or  Jacob  Boehme  ?  And  did  he 
feign  to  quote  it  in  order  (like  a  favorite  device  of 
Carlyle)  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  making  a  steep 
transition  to  such  an  Orphic  style  ?  Or,  are  the  quo 
tation-marks  no  mask,  after  all,  and  did  he  quote  the 
substance  of  his  friend  Alcott's  Orphic  rhapsodizings  ? 
Perhaps,  however,  these  words  were  written  before 
the  acquaintance  with  Alcott  began;  perhaps,  too, 
before  Alcott  himself  adopted  the  theory  of  the  Lapse. 
But  it  is  certain  that  nowhere  else  (not  even  in  the 
"  Tablets  ")  could  one  find  such  a  complete  statement 
of  the  Lapse  theory,  held  by  Alcott  ever  since  the  Or 
phic  sayings  were  written  for  "The  Dial"  in  1842. 

I  cannot  think  that  Emerson  ever  held  the  doc 
trine  of  the  Lapse,  or  believed  it  seriously  to  be  the 
true  view  of  the  world.  He  makes  occasionally  a 
poetic  allusion  to  it,  and  sometimes  seems  to  be  at 
tracted  by  its  intimation  of  a  former  union  with  God 
which  the  soul  may  attain  again ;  but  for  his  own 
genuine  theory  of  the  world  one  must  look  to  his 
statement  of  evolution  —  an  ascent  rather  than  a 
lapse. 


EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE.       363 

I  quote  in  conclusion,  as  one  of  the  completest  of 

his  statements,  this  poem  on  "Wealth," — illustrating 
how  science  can  be  turned  into  spiritual  metaphor : 

"  Who  shall  tell  what  did  befall 

Far  away  in  time  when  once 

Over  the  lifeless  ball 

Hung  idle  stars  and  suns  ? 

What  god  the  element  obeyed  ? 

Wings  of  what  wind  the  lichen  bore, 
,    Wafting  the  puny  seeds  of  power, 

Which,  lodged  in  rock,  the  rock  abrade  ? 

And  well  the  primal  pioneer 

Knew  the  strong  task  to  it  assigned, 

Patient  through  Heaven's  enormous  year 

To  build  in  matter  home  for  mind. 

From  air  the  creeping  centuries  drew 

The  matted  thicket  low  and  wide, 

This  must  the  leaves  of  ages  strew 

The  granite  slab  to  clothe  and  hide, 

Ere  wheat  can  wave  its  golden  pride. 

What  smiths,  and  in  what  furnace,  rolled 

(In  dizzy  aeons  dim  and  mute 

The  reeling  brain  can  ill  compute) 

Copper  and  iron,  lead  and  gold  ? 

What  oldest  star  the  fame  can  save 

Of  races  perishing  to  pave 

The  planet  with  a  floor  of  lime  ? 

Dust  is  their  pyramid  and  mole. 

Who  saw  what  ferns  and  palms  were  pressed 

Under  the  tumbling  mountain's  breast 

In  the  safe  herbal  of  the  coal  ? 

But  when  the  quarried  means  were  piled 

All  is  waste  and  worthless,  till 

Arrives  the  wise  selecting  will, 

And  out  of  slime  and  chaos,  Wit 

Draws  the  threads  of  fair  and  fit. 


364  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Then  temples  rose,  and  towns  and  marts,  • 
The  shop  of  toil,  the  hall  of  arts  ; 
Then  flew  the  sail  across  the  seas 
To  feed  the  North  from  tropic  trees  ; 
The  storm -wind  wove,  the  torrent  span, 
Where  they  were  bid,  the  rivers  ran ; 
New  slaves  fulfilled  the  poet's  dream, 
Galvanic  wire,  strong-shouldered  steam. 
Then  docks  were  built  and  crops  were  stored 
And  ingots  added  to  the  hoard. 
But,  though  light-headed  man  forget, 
Remembering  Matter  pays  her  debt  ; 
Still,  through  her  motes  and  masses,  draw 
Electric  thrills  and  ties  of  Law, 
Which  bind  the  strengths  of  Nature  wild 
To  the  conscience  of  a  child." 


EMERSON  AS  SEEN  FROM  INDIA.  365 


XIII. 

X 

EMERSON  AS   SEEN  FROM  INDIA. 

BY  PROTAP  CHUXDER  MOZOOMDAR. 

To  speak  frankly,  the  meditative  Hindoo  feels  that 
much  of  all  this  Anglo-Saxon  muscularity  might  be 
spared.  India  is  networked  with  iron  roads,  warped 
and  woofed  with  electric  wires,  measured,  triangulated, 
dock-yarded,  garrisoned,  planted  with  90-pounder 
guns,  inundated  with  mum  and  whiskey.  We  ask  in 
innocent  wonder  where  all  this  will  end.  The  Eng 
lish  newspapers,  when  they  do  not  fight  against  the 
"  natives,"  fight  against  each  other,  or  speak  of  wars 
and  amnesties  in  other  lands,  or  deal  with  trade  statis 
tics,  parliamentary  triumphs,  ball-room  dresses,  and 
marriages  in  high  life.  They  bring  us  in  ship-loads 
of  literature  from  England  about  romantic  attach 
ments  and  refined  flirtations  and  aristocratic  ras 
calities.  They  write  books  to  prove  that  men  have 
as  little  soul  as  oysters,  that  animals  show  their 
passions  and  intelligence  by  affections  of  the  same 
nerves  as  human  beings,  and  that  some  handsome 
women  when  angry  display  their  canine  teeth.  Eu- 


366  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

rope  has  conquered  us,  and  now  she  is  trying  to 
materialize  us.  We  cannot  cope  with  her  tremendous 
muscularities. 

' '  The  brooding  East  with  awe  beheld 

Her  impious  younger  world,  — 
The  Roman  tempest  swelled  and  swelled, 

And  on  her  head  was  hurled. 
The  East  bowed  low  before  the  blast, 

In  patient,  deep  disdain  ; 
She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 

And  plunged  in  thought  again." 

While  wandering  last  year  under  the  classic  shad 
ows  of  your  great  trees  at  Concord,  my  dear  friend 
Dr.  Putnam  often  talked  to  me  of  the  rapt,  thought- 
plunged  figure  of  Emerson  so  often  seen  in  those 
Arcadian  walks.  My  reverence  for  him  was  great. 
Every  scene  of  beauty  seemed  to  be  haunted  by  his 
spirit.  The  fragrance  of  his  presence,  removed  but 
so  lately,  still  hovered  over  all  that  I  saw.  And  now 
you  want  me  to  say  what  we  think  of  him  in  India. 
Where  the  blue  Narbudda,  so  still,  so  deep  and  pure, 
flows  through  the  high,  milk-white  walls  of  the  marble 
hills  near  Jubbulpoor,  in  the  natural  alcoves  of  the 
virgin  rocks  there  are  devotional  inscriptions  in  San 
scrit.  I  wish  Emerson  had  composed  his  essays  on 
Nature  there.  The  azure  dome  above,  the  azure  floor 
beneath,  the  pure  white  hills  around,  without  a  blade 
of  grass,  the  mysterious  calmness  and  coolness,  the 
hum  of  the  wild  bees,  the  cooing  of  the  wild  doves, 
remind  one  of  the  spirit,  depth,  sweetness,  pureness, 
and  stillness  of  Emerson's  genius. 


EMERSON  AS  SEEN  FROM  INDIA.  367 

Amidst  this  ceaseless,  sleepless  din  and  clash  of 
Western  materialism,  this  heat  of  restless  energy,  the 
character  of  Emerson  shines  upon  India  serene  as  the 
evening  star.  He  seems  to  some  of  us  to  have  been 
a  geographical  mistake.  He  ought  to  have  been  born 
in  India,  Perhaps  Hindoos  were  closer  kinsmen  to 
him  than  his  own  nation,  because  every  typical  Hin 
doo  is  a  child  of  Nature.  All  our  ancient  religion  is 
the  utterance  of  the  Infinite  through  Nature's  symbol 
ism.  The  sky,  the  luminous  atmosphere,  the  sun,  the 
sea,  and  the  swift  night-winds,  twilight  and  the  dawn, 
—  daughters  of  the  heavens,  —  called  out  the  Hindoo 
sage  into  the  bosom  of  the  unspeakable  Dyaus  Pitar 
(Dicspater,  Jupiter),  the  Heavenly  Father.  Emerson 
speaks  of  his  sense  of  childhood  in  the  green  mansions 
of  Nature;  his  rapt  communion  with  the  spirit  of 
"the  august  Mother;"  his  starlight  wanderings ;  the 
upward  gazing  into  the  infinite  depths ;  his  sense  of 
homogeneity  with  the  woods  and  wilderness.  The 
tranquil  landscape  and  the  distant  line  of  the  horizon 
gave  him  that  perception  of  occult  relationship  be 
tween  man  and  all  things  which  is  the  key  to  the 
sublime  culture  known  as  Yoga  in  the  history  of 
Hindoo  philosophy.  "  I  become  a  transparent  eye 
ball,"  says  he ;  "  I  am  nothing ;  I  see  all ;  the  cur 
rents  of  universal  being  circulate  through  me.  I 
am  part  or  parcel  of  God.  ...  I  am  the  lover  of 
uncontained,  immortal  beauty." 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  in  his  last  work  on  Yoga 
says :  "  The  face-wall  of  Nature's  cathedral  is  opaque 


368  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

to  the  ordinary  eye,  but  to  the  spiritual  eye  of  Yoga 
it  is  transparent.  Hence  the  Rishi  (devotee)  saw 
through  the  diversified  forms  of  gross  matter  the 
presence  of  a  resplendent  person."  Such  God-vision 
is  possible  only  to  the  favored  eye  of  the  Yogi.  West 
ern  intellect  has  disenchanted,  hardened,  vulgarized 
Nature  ;  driven  all  soul,  all  poetry,  all  religion  and 
supersensible  meaning  out  of  it.  Emerson  has  re 
habilitated  the  deepest  revelations  in  this  outward 
frame  of  the  universe.  He  has  re-established  the 
priestly  functions  of  man  in  the  mysterious  temples 
of  Nature.  You  will  have  to  admit  now  that  the 
great  fathers  of  our  people  in  going  to  discover  the 
secrets  of  all  things  in  the  animated  symbols  of  this 
vast  creation,  read  Truth  at  its  very  source.  Emerson 
read  from  that  same  mysterious  volume,  and  scattered 
beauty,  wisdom,  and  spiritual  plenty  over  all  his 
land. 

The  evolution  of  Hindoo  spirituality  shows  in  its 
second  stage  the  wonderful  development  of  insight. 
The  Vedas  are  the  religious  interpretation  of  Nature, 
the  Upanishads  or  Vedantas  are  the  concentrated  re 
ligion  of  the  soul.  All  the  varied  powers  of  Nature, 
all  names,  and  all  forms  resolve  into  Atman,  or  self. 
The  Vedic  poet  asks  :  "  Who  saw  him  [the  soul]  when 
he  was  first  born  ;  when  he  who  has  no  bones  bore 
him  who  has  ?  Where  was  the  breath,  the  blood,  the 
self  of  the  world  ?  Who  went  to  ask  this  from  any 
that  knew  it  ?  Though  solitary,  still  he  [the  soul] 
walks  far :  though  lying  down,  he  goes  everywhere. 


EMERSON  AS  SEEN  FROM  INDIA.  369 

Who  save  myself  is  able  to  know  that  God  who  re 
joices  and  rejoices  not  ?  "  All  at  once,  iii  this  stage 
of  Yedic  theology,  the  solid  universe  vanishes  as  an 
illusion,  and  religion  soars  sublime  in  the  azure  in 
finitude  of  soul.  Who  but  Emerson,  in  the  West, 
represents  this  illumined,  spiritual  introspection  ? 
True,  his  intercourse  with  Nature  was  part  of  his 
daily  food ;  but  it  did  not  shut  out,  it  unsealed  his 
insight  into,  that  grander  heaven  and  earth  within 
himself.  Nature  was  but  the  outer  halo  of  the  deep, 
inner  fire ;  the  soul  overshadowed  everything ;  the 
universe  became  pale  before  its  grandeur.  "  Go  out 
of  the  house,"  says  he,  "  to  see  the  moon,  and  it  is 
mere  tinsel."  Who  discovered  so  well  as  he  that 
Nature  teaches  us  nothing  but  what  we  ourselves 
contribute  to  it  ?  The  spirit  is  the  centre  and  arche 
type  of  all  things,  and  beauty,  beneficence,  law,  and 
wisdom  only  lead  us  to  ourselves.  Emerson  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  true  philosophy  of  man  by  tracing 
phenomena  to  their  real  source  in  reflective  humanity. 
He  laid  the  foundations  of  the  true  philosophy  of  the 
world  by  viewing  matter,  not  as  a  soulless  succession 
of  appearances,  nor  yet  a  creation  of  the  brain  of 
man,  but  as  a  mysterious,  marvellous  putting  forth 
in  outward  form  of  beauty  that  which  he  inwardly 
realizes  in  the  spirit.  His  writings,  too,  often  recall  to 
inind  the  utterances  of  Hindoo  philosophy,  —  that  all 
the  universe  is  a  divine  dream,  passing  away ;  but  in 
passing  it  reminds  us  of  the  meaning,  glory,  pres 
ence,  and  life,  which  it  reveals  and  conceals  at  the 

24 


370  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

same  time.  Creation  rests  on  the  bosom  of  man,  and 
man  rests  on  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite.  "No  mor 
tal,"  says  the  Vedanta,  "  lives  by  the  breath  that  goes 
up  or  by  the  breath  that  goes  down.  We  live  in 
another,  in  whom  -both  repose." 

Amidst  all  this  soul-absorbing  philosophy  of  things, 
it  is  a  true  happiness  to  find  that  Emerson  so  deeply 
felt  the  reality  and  earnestness  of  life,  —  the  reality 
of  the  inner  and  outer  world  as  well.  There  are  two 
orders  of  devotees  in  India,  —  those  who  renounce 
their  homes  and  retire  into  the  forests,  and  those  who 
live  in  their  houses,  but,  with  everything  that  per 
tains  to  them,  devote  themselves  to  the  culture  and 
the  perfection  of  virtue.  Shiva  himself,  the  prince 
of  Yogis,  belongs  to  the  latter  order.  "  All  the  fet 
ters  of  the  heart  here  on  earth  are  broken,  all  that 
binds  us  to  this  life  is  undone ;  the  mortal  becomes 
immortal."  This  is  the  lofty  idea  of  emancipated 
humanity  which  Krishna  inculcates  in  the  Bhagavat 
Gita.  And  to  Emerson  surely  belonged  that  beatified 
humanity.  I  do  not  know  why,  but  as  often  as  I 
study  his  features  in  the  imperfect  photograph  which 
I  possess,  the  idea  of  Nirvana  as  taught  by  the  great 
Sakya  Muni  suffuses  my  soul.  There  is  that  hushed, 
ineffable,  self-contained  calmness  over  his  counte 
nance  so  familiar  to  us  who  have  studied  the  expres 
sion  of  Gotama's  image  in  every  posture.  In  Japau, 
China,  Barman,  Ceylon,  Nepaul,  Thibet,  —  Buddha 
has  the  same  mysterious  calmness.  The  Egyptians 
prefigure  it  in  the  awful  face  of  the  Sphinx.  It  is 


EMERSON  AS  SEEN  FROM  INDIA.  371 

Nirvana  made  flesh  and  visible.  It  is  the  "peace 
past  understanding "  which  lights  up  the  face  of 
every  true  child  of  God.  Emerson  had  it  in  a  won 
derful  measure.  It  did  me  good  to  hear  of  his  broad, 
warm,  many-sided  humanity.  Did  he  not  welcome 
work,  spirituality,  aspiration,  obscure  excellence,  from 
every  quarter  of  the  globe  into  his  house  ?  Did  he 
not  identify  himself  with  every  good  movement, 
however  unpopular,  which  had  for  its  object  the 
amelioration  of  his  race  ? 

Long,  long  had  we  heard  of  his  name  and  reputa 
tion.  We  wondered  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 
When  at  last  I  landed  on  your  continent,  how  glad  I 
should  have  been  to  sit  at  his  feet  and  unfold  before 
him  the  tale  of  our  woe  and  degradation  !  But  he 
had  gone  to  his  rest ;  and  instead  of  touching  his 
warm  hand,  which  had  blessed  so  many  pilgrims,  I 
could  but  kiss  the  cold  dust  of  his  nameless  grave 
at  the  Concord  cemetery. 

Yes,  Emerson  had  all  the  wisdom  and  spirituality 
of  the  Brahmans.  Brahmanism  is  an  acquirement,  a 
state  of  being  rather  than  a  creed.  In  whomsoever 
the  eternal  Brahma  breathed  his  unquenchable  fire, 
he  was  the  Brahman.  And  in  that  sense  Emerson 
was  the  best  of  Brahmans. 

PEACE  COTTAGE,  CALCUTTA,  July,  1884. 


372  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


XIV. 
EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM. 

BY  W.  T.  HARRIS. 

IN  his  "  Bepresentative  Men  "  Emerson  describes 
Plato  as  visiting  Asia  and  Egypt,  and  imbibing  "  the 
idea  of  one  Deity  in  which  all  things  are  absorbed." 
Asia,  according  to  him,  is  "  the  country  of  unity,  of 
immovable  institutions ;  the  seat  of  a  philosophy  de 
lighting  in  abstractions,  of  men  faithful  in  doctrine 
and  in  practice  to  the  idea  of  a  deaf,  unimplorable 
fate,  which  it  realizes  in  the  social  institution  of 
caste."  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  is  active  and 
creative  in  its  genius ;  "  it  resists  caste  by  culture ; 
its  philosophy  was  a  discipline ;  it  is  a  land  of  arts, 
inventions,  trade,  freedom.  If  the  East  loved  infinity, 
the  West  delighted  in  boundaries."  Plato,  according 
to  him,  is  the  balanced  soul  who  sees  the  two  ele 
ments  and  does  justice  to  each.  What  Emerson  says 
of  Plato  we  may  easily  and  properly  apply  to  himself. 
But  he  goes  farther  than  Plato  towards  the  Orient, 
and  his  pendulum  swings  farther  West  into  the 
Occident.  He  delights  in  the  all-absorbing  unity 
of  the  Brahman,  in  the  all-renouncing  ethics  of  the 
Chinese  and  Persian,  in  the  measureless  images  of 


EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  373 

the  Arabian  and  Hindoo  poets.  But  he  is  as  practi 
cal  as  the  extremest  of  his  countrymen.  His  practical 
is  married  to  his  abstract  tendency.  It  is  the  problem 
of  evil  that  continually  haunts  him,  and  leads  him 
to  search  its  solution  in  the  Oriental  unity  which  is 
above  all  dualism  of  good  and  evil.  It  is  his  love  of 
freedom  that  leads  him  to  seek  in  the  same  source 
an  elevation  of  thought  above  the  trammels  of  fini- 
tude  and  complications.  Finally,  it  is  his  love  of 
beauty,  which  is  the  vision  of  freedom  manifested  in 
matter,  that  leads  him  to  Oriental  poetry,  which  sports 
with  the  finite  elements  of  the  world  as  though  they 
were  unsubstantial  dreams. 

Perhaps  nowhere  in  our  literature  may  one  find  so 
complete  a  characterization  of  the  East  Indian  phi 
losophy  as  is  contained  in  the  short  poem  called 
"  Brahma/'  which  appeared  in  the  first  number  of 
the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  in  1857.  There  is  no  sub 
ject  farther  from  the  thought  of  the  average  common- 
sense  of  the  modern  European  or  American  than  the 
all-absorbing  unity  which  the  East  Indian  conceived 
under  the  name  Braluna.  Hence  the  mirth  excited  at 
first  by  the  strange  conceits  of  the  poem  in  question. 
To  the  reader  of  the  Bhagavat  Gita,  "Brahma"  seemed 
a  wholly  admirable  epitome,  or  condensed  statement,  of 
that  wonderful  book.  One  may  illustrate  each  stanza 
by  parallel  passages  from  the  Indian  episode. 

"  If  the  red  slayer  think  he  slays, 

Or  if  the  slain  think  he  is  slain, 
They  know  not  well  the  subtle  ways 
I  keep,  and  pass,  and  turn  again." 


374  THE   GENIUS   OF  EMERSON. 

Brahma  is  pure  Being,  the  same  in  all  things  that 
exist,  the  same  under  all  changes.  In  the  second 
chapter  of  the  Bhagavat  G-ita  (J.  Cockburn  Thom 
son's  translation),  the  following  passage  occurs  :  — 

"  He  who  believes  that  this  spirit l  can  kill,  and  he 
who  thinks  that  it  can  be  killed,  both  of  these  are  wrong 
in  judgment.  It  neither  kills,  nor  is  killed.  It  is  not 
born,  nor  dies  at  any  time.  It  has  no  origin,  nor  will  it 
ever  have  an  origin.  Unborn,  changeless,  eternal,  both  as 
to  future  and  past  time,  it  is  not  slain  when  the  body 
is  killed." 

In  the  same  chapter  the  "  subtle  ways  "  of  Being 
are  described  thus :  "  All  things  which  exist  are  in 
visible  in  their  first  state,  visible  in  their  intermediate 
state,  and  again  invisible  in  their  final  state."  The 
visible  state  is  the  passing  state,  and  the  invisible 
state  is  that  which  Being  returns  to  and  keeps. 

"  Far  or  forgot  to  me  is  near  ; 

Shadow  and  sunlight  are  the  same  ; 
The  vanished  gods  to  me  appear  ; 
And  one  to  me  are  shame  and  fame." 

To  pure  being  there  is  no  distinction.  Even  one 
so  important  as  separation  in  space  and  time  is 
nothing,  and  all  is  "  near."  Light  and  darkness,  too, 
the  most  wonderful  of  material  distinctions,  are  the 

1  The  word  translated  "spirit  "  here,  signifies  pure  being  rather 
than  consciousness,  as  it  does  with  us  ;  for  the  spirit  is  something 
above  mind  (buddhi)  and  heart  (manas),  which  are  its  external 
instruments.  The  "red  slayer"  is  a  member  of  the  warrior  caste, 
the  Kshatriyas. 


EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  375 

same  to  pure  being.  Even  the  invisible  ("  van 
ished  ")  gods  are  pervaded  by  Being,  and  invisibility 
has  no  validity.  But  a  far  deeper  distinction  to 
humanity  is  that  between  good  and  evil,  shame  and 
fame.  Even  this,  however,  does  not  enter  the  divine 
essence  of  Brahma ;  to  him  one  is  the  same  as  the 
other.  This  moral  indifference  is  Indian,  but  not 
Persian.  To  the  Persian,  good  and  evil  are  absolute, 
and  irreducible  to  a  common  ground.  At  first,  light 
and  darkness  —  shadow  and  sunlight  —  were  the 
ultimate  elements  of  the  absolute  dualism.  Then 
came  Zoroaster,  who  elevated  the  thought  to  good  and 
evil,  as  being  more  ultimate  natures  than  light  and 
darkness.  Ahura  Mazda  and  Ahriman  are  in  eternal 
conflict.  A  primeval  unity  for  the  two  —  Zcrruane 
Akercne  —  is  a  comparatively  modern  thought,  re 
sulting  from  an  attempt  to  reduce  the  Persian  doc 
trine  to  a  monism,  like  Brahmanism.  In  the  ninth 
chapter  of  the  BJuigavat  Gita  Krishna  says  :  — 

"  I  am  the  same  to  all  beings.  I  have  neither  foe  nor 
friend.  But  those  who  worship  me  with  devotion  dwell 
in  me  and  I  also  in  them.  Even  if  one  who  has  led  a 
very  bad  life  worship  me,  devoted  to  no  other  object,  he 
must  be  considered  as  a  good  man ;  for  he  has  judged 
aright.  He  soon  becomes  religiously  disposed,  and  enters 
eternal  rest ;  he  who  worships  me  never  perishes.  For 
even  those  who  are  born  in  sin  —  even  women,  Yaishyas, 
and  Shiidras  —  take  the  highest  path  if  they  have  re 
course  to  me.  How  much  more,  then,  sacred  Brahmans 
and  pious  Rajarshis." 


376  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

In  the  thirteenth  chapter  we  recognize  the  indiffer 
ence  of  space  and  time  in  this  :  "  It  [spirit,  or  pure 
being]  cannot  be  recognized,  on  account  of  its  sub- 
tility,  and  it  exists  both  far  and  near." 

The  network  of  distinctions  in  the  world  forms  a 
divine  illusion  (Maya),  by  wrhich  those  men  are  de 
luded  who  do  not  take  refuge  in  Brahma.  This  is 
described  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Bhagavat 
Gita.  Here,  too,  occurs  the  mention  of  the  Over-Soul, 
or  Adhyatma,  an  expression  which  Emerson  used  as 
a  title  for  one  of  the  greatest  of  his  essays.  In  the 
eighth  chapter  we  read :  "  The  supreme  universal 
spirit  is  the  One  simple  and  indivisible  ;  and  my 
own  nature  is  called  Adhyatma "  (Adhi,  meaning 
above,  superior  to,  or  presiding  over ;  and  atma,  the 
soul,  —  not  the  soul  that  presides  over  all,  but  that 
which  is  above  the  soul  itself). 

"They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out ; 

When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings  ; 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 

And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings." 

The  last  line  recalls  the  passage  in  the  tenth  chapter 
of  the  Bhagavat  Gita,  where  we  are  told  which  one  is 
the  hymn  :  "  Of  the  Vedas,  I  am  the  Sama-Veda.  I 
am  the  Vrihatsaman  among  the  hymns  (of  the  Sama- 
Veda)  ;  the  Gaytri  among  rhymes." 

"  The  strong  gods  pine  for  my  abode, 

And  pine  in  vain  the  sacred  Seven  ; 
But  thou,  meek  lover  of  the  good  ! 
Find  me,  and  turn  thy  back  on  heaven." 


EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  377 

The  "strong  gods"  are :  Indra,  the  god  of  the  sky,  the 
wielder  of  the  thunder- bolt;  Agni,  the  god  of  fire; 
and  Yaina,  the  god  of  death  and  judgment.  These  and 
all  the  inferior  gods  are  absorbed  into  Brahma  at  the 
close  of  the  Kalpa,  or  day  of  Brahma  (four  thousand 
three  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  our  years)  ; 
and  after  the  night  of  Brahma  are  again  created  at 
the  beginning  of  the  next  clay.  The  "  sacred  seven  " 
are  the  seven  Maharshis  (Jfaha,  great,  and  rishi,  saint), 
or  highest  saints.  In  the  tenth  chapter  we  are  told  : 
"  The  seven  Maharshis  .  .  .  were  born  of  my  mind, 
and  from  them  these  inhabitants  of  the  world  are 
sprung."  They  preside  over  each  manwantara  (one  of 
the  fourteen  divisions  of  the  Kalpa). 

Brahma  exhorts  man  to  come  to  him  through  at 
taining  a  state  of  mental  indifference  to  all  dis 
tinctions.  He  may  even  neglect  the  holy  Vedas,  if 
he  will  turn  his  back  on  Indra's  heaven  and  seek  to 
know  "  the  single  imperishable  principle  of  existence 
in  all  things  ; "  and  when  he  is  in  a  condition  where 
"he  neither  rejects  nor  hopes,"  then  "he  enters  me" 
without  any  intermediate  condition."  In  the  eigh 
teenth  chapter  is  this  injunction :  — 

"Place  thy  affections  on  me,  worship  me,  sacrifice  to  me, 
and  reverence  me.  Thus  thou  wilt  come  to  me.  I  declare  the 
truth  to  thee.  Abandoning  all  religious  duties,  seek  me  as  thy 
refuge.  I  will  deliver  thee  from  all  sin.  Be  not  anxious." 

Thus  it  happens  that,  as  we  learn  in  chapter  eigh 
teenth,  "  He  whose  disposition  is  not  egotistical,  and 


378  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

whose  mind  is  not  polluted,  does  not  kill,  even  though 
he  slay  yonder  people." 

This  Bhagavat  Gita,  an  episode  in  the  Mahdbha- 
ro.ta.-t  represents  a  field  of  battle;  and  Arjuna,  com 
manding  the  younger  branch  of  the  Kuru  tribe,  is 
seized  with  irresolution  at  the  sight  of  his  relatives 
in  the  opposing  army.  Krishna  the  god,  disguised 
as  his  charioteer,  delivers  the  doctrines  of  the  book 
as  an  argument  to  induce  him  to  fight,  and  succeeds. 
"  A  treatise  of  metaphysics  before  a  battle,  in  eigh 
teen  lectures,  under  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between 
Arjuna  and  his  companion  Krishna,  —  such  is  the 
Bhagavat  Git  a"  says  Cousin  in  his  "  History  of  Mod 
ern  Philosophy"  (vol.  ii.  ch.  vi.).  He  well  charac 
terizes  (in  the  same  chapter)  the  nature  of  Brahma 
as  conceived  by  the  Indian  consciousness  :  — 

"In  fact,  what  is  the  sole  exercise  of  the  sage  1  Con 
templation  ;  the  contemplation  of  God.  And  what  is  this 
Godl  We  have  seen  what ;  the  abstraction  of  being.  But 
the  abstraction  of  being,  without  fixed  attribute,  is  realized 
quite  as  well  in  a  dog  as  in  a  man  ;  for  there  is  being  in 
everything,  as  Leibnitz  has  said  ;  there  is  being  in  a  clod 
of  earth  as  well  as  in  the  soul  of  the  last  of  the  Brutnses. 
The  indifference  of  the  Yogin  is,  therefore,  consistent ;  he 
searches  only  for  God,  but  he  finds  him  equally  in  every 
thing." 

In  his  article  on  Plato,  in  the  "  representative 
Men  "  (first  edition,  page  53),  Emerson  has  fully  de 
scribed  this  idea  in  the  form  that  he  held  it,  and  as  he 
understood  the  East  Indians  to  hold  it,  thus :  — 


EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  379 

"  The  Same,  the  Same  :  friend  and  foe  are  of  one  stuff; 
the  ploughman,  the  plough,  and  the  furrow  are  of  one 
stuff ;  and  the  stuff  is  such,  and  so  much,  that  the  varia 
tions  of  form  are  unimportant.  *  You  are  fit,'  says  the 
supreme  Krishna  to  a  sage,  *  to  apprehend  that  you  are 
not  distinct  from  me.  That  which  I  am,  thou  art,  and 
that  also  is  this  world,  with  its  gods,  and  heroes,  and 
mankind.  Men  contemplate  distinctions,  hecause  they  are 
stupefied  with  ignorance.  .  .  .  The  words  I  and  Mine  con 
stitute  ignorance.  What  is  the  great  end  of  all,  you  shall 
now  learn  from  me.  It  is  soul,  —  one  in  all  bodies,  per 
vading,  uniform,  perfect,  pre-eminent  over  Nature,  exempt 
from  birth,  growth,  and  decay,  omnipresent,  made  up  of 
true  knowledge,  independent,  unconnected  with  unreali 
ties,  with  name  species,  and  the  rest,  in  time  past,  present, 
and  to  come.  The  knowledge  that  this  spirit,  which  is 
essentially  one,  is  in  one's  own,  and  in  all  other  bodies,  is 
the  wisdom  of  one  who  knows  the  unity  of  things.  As 
one  diffusive  air,  passing  through  the  perforations  of  a 
flute,  is  distinguished  as  the  notes  of  a  scale,  so  the  nature 
of  the  Great  Spirit  is  single,  though  its  forms  be  mani 
fold,  arising  from  the  consequences  of  acts.  When  the 
difference  of  the  investing  form,  as  that  of  god,  or  the 
rest,  is  destroyed,  there  is  no  distinction.  .  .  .  The  whole 
world  is  but  a  manifestation  of  Vishnu,  who  is  identical 
with  all  things,  and  is  to  be  regarded  by  the  wise,  as  not 
differing  from,  but  as  the  same  as  themselves.  I  neither 
am  going  nor  coming ;  nor  is  my  dwelling  in  any  one  place ; 
nor  art  thou,  thou  ;  nor  are  others,  others ;  nor  am  I,  I.' 
As  if  he  had  said,  'All  is  for  the  soul,  and  the  soul  is 
Vishnu ;  and  animals  and  stars  are  transient  paintings,  and 
light  is  whitewash,  and  durations  are  deceptive,  and  form 


380  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

is  imprisonment,  and  heaven  itself  a  deco}7.'  That  which 
the  soul  seeks  is  resolution  into  being,  above  form,  out  of 
Tartarus,  and  out  of  heaven,  —  liberation  from  nature." 

It  is  remarkable  that  while  Emerson  has  given  us 
this  wonderful  summary  of  the  spirit  of  the  Indian 
mind,  Alcott  should  have  made  a  somewhat  similar 
statement  of  the  Egyptian  mind.  In  his  "  Tablets  " 
(page  167)  he  develops  his  theory  of  man  as  the  au 
thor  of  Nature :  — 

"  Man  is  a  soul,  informed  by  divine  ideas,  and  bodying 
forth  their  image.  His  mind  is  the  unit  and  measure  of 
things  visible  and  invisible.  In  him  stir  the  creatures 

O 

potentially,  and  through  his  personal  volitions  are  con 
ceived  and  brought  forth  in  matter  whatsoever  he  sees, 
touches,  and  treads  under  foot,  — the  planet  he  spins." 

He  then  proceeds  with  this  remarkable  epitome  of 
the  Egyptian  mind  as  the  Neoplatonists  interpreted 
it:  — 

"  He  omnipresent  is, 
All  round  himself  he  lies, 
Osiris  spread  abroad, 
Upstaring  m  all  eyes  ; 
Nature  his  globed  thought, 
Without  him  she  were  not, 
Cosmos  from  Chaos  were  not  spoken, 
And  God  bereft  of  visible  token." 

This  is  spoken  of  man,  as  though  the  Egyptian 
Sphinx  had  brooded  over  the  riddle  of  human  life, 
its  universal  significance  in  the  world,  as  the  final 
object  of  all  creation. 


E^fERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  381 

The  problem  of  evil  and  fmitude  receives  a  solu 
tion  in  Emerson's  "  Uriel."  In  this  poem  the  sub 
stantiality  of  evil  is  denied  and  the  supremacy  of 
good  asserted.  Not  merely  this  doctrine  but  a  much 
concreter  form  is  set  forth ;  namely,  that  all  deeds 
return  upon  their  doer,  and  that  all  influences  re 
turn  to  their  source  in  such  a  manner  that  all  pain 
or  evil  is  but  good  in  the  process  of  making.  The  re 
turn  of  injury  upon  the  doer  does  not  annihilate  him, 
but  punishes  him  into  goodness,  heals  and  blesses 
him.  The  form  of  this  poem  is  a  suggestion  of  Per 
sian  or  Arabic  poetry.  It  refers  to  Seyd  (sultan), 
suggesting  a  favorite  Persian  poet,  and  hints  at  the 
seven  archangels,  of  whom  Uriel  was  one,  by  the  term 
Pleiads  (the  famous  seven).  Uriel  was  the  archangel 
of  the  Sun,  endowed  with  the  fulness  of  divine 
light.  Milton  speaks  of  him  as  the  interpreter  of 
God's  will :  — 

"  Uriel,  for  them  of  those  seven  spirits  that  stand 
In  sight  of  God's  high  throne,  gloriously  bright, 
The  first  art  wont  his  great  authentic  will 
Interpreter  through  highest  heaven  to  bring." 

Uriel  would  be  the  spirit  most  fitting  to  see  the 
deepest  solution  of  the  problem  of  life.  In  the  pro 
found  discussion  with  the  other  archangels  on  the 
question  of  "  what  subsisteth  and  what  seems,"  he 
gives  "  sentiment  divine  "  against  the  subsistence  of 
eviL  Nothing  in  the  universe  exists  except  self- 
relation,  —  all  will  return  to  itself,  —  all  is  circular. 


382  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Evil  returned  on  itself  will  neutralize  itself  so  that 
its  subsistence  or  continuance  can  only  be  in  the 
form  of  the  good. 

"  Line  in  nature  is  not  found  ; 
Unit  and  universe  are  round  ; 
In  vain  produced,  all  rays  return  ; 
Evil  will  bless,  and  ice  will  burn." 

This  oracle  causes  a  shudder  in  heaven :  — 

"  Seemed  to  the  holy  festival 
The  rash  word  boded  ill  to  all  ; 
The  balance-beam  of  Fate  was  bent ; 
The  bounds  of  good  and  ill  were  rent ; 
Strong  Hades  could  not  keep  his  own, 
But  all  slid  to  confusion." 

If  good  and  evil  are  only  two  roads,  both  leading 
to  the  same  goal,  where,  then,  is  the  distinction  be 
tween  heaven  and  hell  ?  Strong  Hades  cannot  keep 
its  devils ;  who  entering  heaven,  among  the  angels, 
all  will  slide  into  confusion.  Here  is  the  same  issue 
that  is  found  in  the  second  stanza  of  "Brahma"  :  — 

"  Shadow  and  sunlight  are  the  same  ; 
And  one  to  me  are  shame  and  fame." 

Taken  directly,  without  the  mediation  provided  for  in 
the  self-return,  it  paralyzes  the  will  and  denies  moral 
ity  and  religion.  Of  what  use  is  it  to  choose  the  right 
and  renounce  the  wrong,  if  all  comes  to  the  same  in 
the  end?  But  consider  the  mediation:  If  you  do  evil, 
it  will  come  back  to  pain  you,  and  you  must  be  puri 
fied  by  its  fire.  Uriel  sees  that  evil  changes  on  its 


EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  383 

return  into  a  purifying  fire, — a  purgatory.  The  uni 
verse  does  not  suffer,  but  the  individual  writhes  in 
pain,  although  he  is  purified  by  it. 

The  universe  is  not  made  for  happiness,  but  for 
the  development  of  free  individuality.  To  free  indi 
viduality  happiness,  or  rather  blessedness,  is  inciden 
tal.  But  pain  is  the  means  by  which  it  is  enabled  to 
grow  into  freedom,  —  the  pain  of  struggle  and  exer 
tion,  the  pain  of  returning  evil  deeds,  by  which  it 
comes  to  self-knowledge  and  learns  its  identity  with 
the  universe  :  — 

"  "With  damning  conceit  and  self-assertion 
To  say  Tliou  in  addressing  the  rest  of  existence, 
Nor  hear  the  answer,  in  agony  echoed  :  — 
'  I,  the  prime  All,  am  within  as  without  thee  ; 
Who  worketh  woe,  to  himself  doth  work  it.'  "  1 

Such  knowledge  of  the  conversion  of  evil  into 
good  tends  to  quietism.  Uriel  retires  from  the  holy 
festival  into  his  cloud  after  this  sad  self-knowledge, 
although  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  lapsed  into  the 
sea  of  generation,  or  whether  he  grew  too  bright  to 
be  seen ;  at  all  events,  he  withdrew  from  sight :  — 

"  A  sad  self-knowledge,  withering,  fell 
On  the  beauty  of  Uriel  ; 
In  heaven  once  eminent,  the  god 
Withdrew,  that  hour,  into  his  cloud  ; 
"Whether  doomed  to  long  gyration 
In  the  sea  of  generation, 
Or  by  knowledge  grown  too  bright 
To  hit  the  nerve  of  feebler  sight. 

1  Jordan's  "  Sigfridsage,"  Mr.  Davidson's  translation. 


384  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Straightway,  a  forgetting  wind 

Stole  over  the  celestial  kind, 

And  their  lips  the  secret  kept,  — 

If  in  ashes  the  fire-seed  slept. 

But  now  and  then,  truth-speaking  things 

Shamed  the  angels'  veiling  wings  ; 

And,  shrilling  from  the  solar  course, 

Or  from  fruit  of  chemic  force, 

Procession  of  a  soul  in  matter, 

Or  the  speeding  change  of  water, 

Or  out  of  the  good  of  evil  born, 

Came  Uriel's  voice  of  cherub  scorn, 

And  a  blush  tinged  the  upper  sky, 

And  the  gods  shook,  they  knew  not  why." 

Another  most  remarkable  poetic  statement  of  the 
law  of  return,  which  Emerson  saw  to  be  the  foun 
dation  of  the  universe,  is  the  oracle  prefixed  to  the 
essay  on  "  Spiritual  Laws  "  :  — 

"  The  living  Heaven  thy  prayers  respect, 
House  at  once  and  architect, 
Quarrying  man's  rejected  hours, 
Builds  therewith  eternal  towers  ; 
Sole  and  self-commanded  works, 
Fears  not  undermining  days, 
Grows  by  decays, 

And,  by  the  famous  might  that  lurks 
In  reaction  and  recoil, 
Makes  flame  to  freeze  and  ice  to  boil  ; 
Forging,  through  swart  arms  of  Offence, 
The  silver  seat  of  Innocence." 

The   universe   is   here   spoken   of    as    the   living 
Heaven,  which   contains   and   upholds,   and  at  the 
same  time  is  active  builder  or  architect ;  using  the ; 
hours  that  man  has  not  moulded  by  his  feeble  will, ' 


EMERSON'S  ORIENTALISM.  385 

it  erects  eternal  towers.  It  is  sole  and  self-com 
manded,  not  co-ordinate  with  any  one,  but  supreme. 
It  does  not  fear  overthrow  of  its  divine  good  through 
the  evil  works  of  wicked  men  who  have  not  learned 
to  will  the  good  for  its  own  sake.  By  the  famous 
might  of  this  law  of  return,  the  deepest  of  Heaven's 
laws,  flame  will  freeze  and  ice  will  boil ;  evil  will 
bless,  by  curing  the  perverse  will  through  the  pain  of 
its  recoil.  Through  the  dark  ministration  of  offending 
deeds  the  silver  seat  of  "Innocence  will  be  forged.  The 
universe  is  so  made  that  as  a  whole  it  always  brings 

•J  O 

out  good  from  evil,  and  "  better  thence  again."  The 
individual  is  prevented  from  subsisting  contentedly 
in  evil  through  the  ministration  of  pain.  "  He  makes 
the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him." 


25 


386       THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


XV. 

EMERSON'S  EELATION  TO  GOETHE 
AND  CARLYLE. 

BY  WILLIAM  T.  HARRIS. 

IN  our  study  of  the  great  man  and  his  environ 
ment  we  must  consider,  before  all,  his  contemporaries. 
By  common  consent  Emerson  is  joined  with  Carlyle 
as  co-author  of  the  stream  of  influence  which  has 
acted  so  powerfully  on  the  thinking  and  literary 
expression  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Other  sources  of  the  same  stream  of  influence  are 
Coleridge  and  Wordsworth.  The  latter,  —  Words 
worth, —  indeed,  stands  for  the  great  English  poet 
of  the  century  with  a  large  and  increasing  number  of 
highly  cultured  people.  We  have  already,  in  discuss 
ing  the  relation  of  Emerson  to  Nature,  spoken  of  the 
characteristics  of  poetry.  Poetry  performs  the  office 
of  imposing  a  spiritual  view  of  some  sort  upon  the 
world  as  it  exists  for  us.  The  poet  passes  it  through 
his  mind,  and  forthwith  his  version  of  nature,  of  men 
and  things,  is  accepted  by  his  readers  and  becomes 
their  view  of  the  world.  There  goes  with  poetry 
music  of  rhythm  and  rhyme;  but  that  is  less  essen 
tial  than  the  trope  and  personification  by  which  the 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.         387 

poet  makes  over  the  tilings  of  the  world  into  means 
of  spiritual  expression.  They  were  prose  facts,  mere 
opaque  things  ;  now  they  become  transparent,  and 
a  sort  of  spiritual  light  shines  through  them.  They 
express  facts  of  human  experience,  —  facts  that  were 
unutterable  before.  The  deep  spiritual  truths  which 
could  not  be  communicated  nor  even  conceived 
clearly,  now  by  the  poet's  aid  become  expressible  in 
trope  and  metaphor  and  through  the  personification 
of  natural  things.  The  invisible  is  now  visible. 

This  function  of  poetry  in  revealing  spiritual  ex 
perience  and  the  structure  of  our  moral  and  intellec 
tual  selves  by  metaphor  and  personification  goes  on 
from  age  to  age.  There  are  poets  of  various  degrees 
of  universality.  Homer's  revelation  underlies  all  our 
literature,  all  the  literature  of  European  civilization. 
He  taught  man  to  recognize  in  nature  the  presence 
of  human  spirit.  Every  object  is  an  expression  of 
some  spiritual  being:  the  fountains,  groves,  moun 
tains,  streams,  clouds,  winds,  waves,  plants,  animals, 
—  all  express  in  their  motions,  sounds,  appearances, 
some  passion,  some  desire  or  meaning  of  invisible  con 
scious  beings.  Nurtured  in  this  view  of  the  world,  it 
is  not  strange  that  the  European  man  has  learned  to 
know  himself  in  the  course  of  three  thousand  years 
by  seeing  his  reflection  in  an  ideal  world  created  for 
him  by  the  Muse. 

In  the  line  of  Homer  have  followed  other  poets, 
great  and  small  The  great  poets  since  Homer  have 
taken  new  themes,  new  experiences  of  the  inner 


388  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

world  of  man,  and  found  their  expression  in  terms 
of  correspondence  with  external  nature.  Dante  lias 
revealed  thus  the  inner  world  of  Christianity.  Shak- 
speare  has  made  visible  the  genesis  of  human  institu 
tions  from  the  individual  man;  he  has  shown  man 
as  a  social  animal  creating  the  social  forms  and 
evolving  social  unities,  —  the  colossal  institutions  in 
which  he  lives.  We  may  study  the  individual,  and 
see  how  these  greater  selves  come  to  manifest  them 
selves  in  his  thinking  and  feeling.  Each  individual 
shows  fragments  of  his  larger  self ;  he  indicates  his 
place  in  some  institution  which  supplements  his 
deficiencies.  If  Shakspeare  is  the  revealer  of  the 
essential  character  of  human  institutions,  teaching 
us  in  what  sense  they  are  the  substance  of  individ 
ual  men,  Goethe  is  the  revealer  of  a  new  phase  of 
human  experience,  of  still  deeper  and  subtler  spirit 
ual  laws.  Goethe  shows  the  individual  not  so  much 
the  source,  as  the  result,  of  institutions.  All  returns 
to  the  individual.  The  institution  which  man  gen 
erates  and  places  over  himself  as  a  supreme  self  to 
nurture  and  preserve  him,  educates  him ;  all  that 
he  gives  to  it  returns  to  him.  By  sufficient  intelli 
gence  he  shall  be  able  to  turn  all  manner  of  fortune 
into  blessing.  The  attitude  of  the  individual  towards 
the  world  is  therefore  all-important.  The  Christian 
religion  had  taught  from  the  beginning  the  germ  of 
this  doctrine.  It  is  the  attitude  of  the  soul  towards 
the  world  that  determines  its  state  of  weal  or  woe. 
The  soul,  in  the  Inferno  of  Dante,  seeks  directly  the 


EMERSOX,  GOETHE,  AND  CARLYLE.          389 

gratification  of  its  finite  wants  and  desires,  careless 
of  the  welfare  of  its  fellows.  This  produces  collision. 
The  individual  against  society  —  the  one  against  the 
many  —  fights,  to  lose  the  battle.  Pain  is  the  only 
result.  The  individual  has  neglected  his  higher  self, 
the  social  whole,  and  has  assumed  that  man  possesses 
completeness  as  a  mere  individual,  without  institu 
tions  ;  but  he  learns  by  the  suffering  of  the  Inferno 
that  he  is,  after  all,  a  mere  fragment,  and  that  by 
selfish  isolation  he  maims  and  wounds  himself. 

In  the  Inferno,  the  soul  pursues  this  hopeless 
struggle  of  selfishness  against  altruism,  growing  more 
deeply  imbittered  against  his  fellow-men  and  the 
universe.  This  attitude  changes  in  the  Purgatory. 
The  individual  sees  the  nature  of  his  sin,  and  repents. 
He  strives  to  reunite  himself  to  his  higher  self  by 
conforming  to  institutions,  family,  civil  society,  Xa- 
tion,  Church.  He  gradually  eliminates  from  himself 
the  habits  and  tendencies  of  antagonism  and  selfish 
ness.  He  attains  at  last  the  Paradise.  This  is  the 
state  of  soul  wherein  the  individual  lives  in  conscious 
harmony  with  institutions,  —  the  state  wherein  he 
enjoys  the  complete  fruition  of  his  higher  self.  He 
sees  and  feels  his  unity  with  all,  and  he  enjoys  the 
life  of  all.  All  returns  to  him.  He  has  found  that 
by  giving  all  he  receives  all.  Selfishness  has  given 
place  to  love. 

The  natural  consequence  of  the  Christian  revelation 
unfolds  by  and  by  this  idea  of  culture  of  the  individual, 
not  as  a  different  revelation,  but  as  its  own  result. 


390  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Goethe  is  the  world-poet  of  this  movement.  He 
shows  in  the  Faust  that  if  the  individual  would  find 
a  permanent  state  of  blessedness,  and  be  able  to  say  to 
the  happy  moment,  "  Stay,  for  thou  art  fair,"  lie  must 
energize  not  against  the  institutions  of  the  world,  as 
he  does  in  the  first  part  of  the  drama,  nor  attempt  to 
find  his  supreme  object  in  any  subordinate  institution, 
as  in  the  second  part  of  the  drama.  He  must  find 
the  paradise  in  altruism.  Only  the  reflection  of  the 
well-being  of  others  can  fill  his  soul  with  gladness 
that  does  not  weary  or  turn  to  sorrow.  Accordingly 
Goethe,  in  the  last  scene  of  the  second  part  of  Faust, 
paints  the  four  phases  of  Christian  history  in  the 
three  typical  holy  fathers  and  the  Doctor  Marianus. 

The  perfection  of  the  soul  by  asceticism  in  Pater 
Ecstaticus  —  repelling  the  social  world  for  the  sake 
of  personal  salvation — is  an  imperfect  Christianity, 
because  it  preserves  the  form  of  selfishness  although 
it  practises  supreme  renunciation.  The  recognition 
of  divine  reason  in  nature  by  Pater  Profundus  is  still 
partial,  because  only  a  theoretical  attitude  towards  the 
world.  Pater  Seraphicus  is  higher,  because  he  actively 
engages  in  the  work  of  lifting  up  others  towards  per 
fection,  using  his  knowledge  to  illuminate  the  imper 
fectly  developed.  Doctor  Marianus  announces  the  view 
of  the  world  on  which  all  this  is  based, — the  doctrine 
of  grace.  It  is  what  Goethe  calls  in  his  great  prose 
romance  the  "worship  of  sorrow."  Wilhelm  Meister 
hears  this  discussed  in  the  Pedagogical  Province:1 — 

1  Carlyle's  Translation. 


EMERSOX,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.          391 

"  Xo  religion  that  grounds  itself  on  fear,"  said  tbe  Three, 
"  is  regarded  among  us.  \Vith  the  reverence,  to  which  a 
man  should  give  dominion  in  his  mind,  lie  can,  in  paying 
honor,  keep  his  own  honor  j  he  is  not  disunited  with  him 
self,  as  in  the  former  case.  The  religion  which  depends 
on  reverence  for  what  is  above  us  we  denominate  the 
Ethnic;  it  is  the  religion  of  the  nations,  and  the  first 
happy  deliverance  from  a  degrading  fear.  All  Heathen 
religions,  as  we  call  them,  are  of  this  sort,  whatsoever 
names  they  bear.  The  second  religion,  which  founds  itself 
on  reverence  for  uhat  is  around  us,  we  denominate  the 
Philosophical ;  for  the  philosopher  stations  himself  in  the 
middle,  and  must  draw  down  to  him  all  that  is  higher, 
and  up  to  him  all  that  is  lower,  and  only  in  this  medium 
condition  does  he  merit  the  title  of  AVise.  Here,  as  he 
surveys  with  clear  sight  his  relations  to  his  equals,  and 
therefore  to  the  whole  human  race,  his  relation  likewise 
to  all  other  earthly  circumstances  and  arrangements  neces 
sary  or  accidental,  he  alone,  in  a  cosmic  sense,  lives  in 
Truth.  But  now  we  have  to  speak  of  the  third  religion, 
grounded  on  reverence  for  what  is  beneath  us  :  this  we 
name  the  Christian,  as  in  the  Christian  religion  such  a 
temper  is  with  most  distinctness  manifested  :  it  is  a  last 
step  to  which  mankind  were  fitted  and  destined  to  attain. 
But  what  a  task  was  it,  not  only  to  be  patient  with  the 
Earth,  and  let  it  lie  beneath  us,  we  appealing  to  a  higher 
birthplace  ;  but  also  to  recognize  humility  and  poverty, 
mockery  and  despite,  disgrace  and  wretchedness,  suffering 
and  death,  to  recognize  these  things  as  divine  ;  nay,  even 
on  sin  and  crime  to  look  not  as  hindrances,  but  to  honor 
and  love  them  as  furtherances  of  what  is  holy  !  Of  this, 
indeed,  we  find  some  traces  in  all  ages  ;  but  the  trace  is 


392  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

not  the  goal ;  and  this  being  now  attained,  the  human 
species  cannot  retrograde ;  arid  we  may  say,  that  the 
Christian  religion,  having-  once  appeared,  cannot  again 
vanish  ;  having  once  assumed  its  divine  shape,  can  he 
subject  to  no  dissolution.'"' 

To  a  remark  of  his,  the  Three  reply  to  Meister : 

"  Our  confession  has  been  adopted,  though  unconsciously, 
by  the  greater  part  of  the  world."  And  "  Where?"  he  asks. 
"  In  the  Creed  !  "  exclaimed  they  ;  "  for  the  first  Article  is 
Ethnic,  and  belongs  to  all  nations ;  the  second,  Christian, 
for  those  struggling  with  affliction  and  glorified  in  afflic 
tion  ;  the  third,  in  fine,  teaches  an  inspired  Communion  of 
Saints,  —  that  is,  of  men  in  the  highest  degree  good  and 
wise." 

In  another  connection  the  eldest  of  the  Three,  after 
discussing  the  other  aspects  of  Christ's  life,  says :  — 

"  Now,  omitting  all  that  results  from  this  consideration, 
do  but  look  at  the  touching  scene  of  the  Last  Supper. 
Here  the  Wise  Man,  as  it  ever  is,  leaves  those  that  are 
his  own  utterly  orphaned  behind  him  ;  and  while  lie  is 
careful  for  the  Good,  he  feeds  along  with  them  a  traitor 
by  whom  he  and  the  Better  are  to  be  destroyed." 

He  continues,  describing  the  rules  and  methods  of 
the  Pedagogic  Province  :  — 

"  All  that  is  external,  worldly,  universal,  we  communi 
cate  to  each  from  youth  upwards  ;  what  is  more  particularly 
spiritual  and  conversant  with  the  heart,  to  those  only  who 
grow  up  with  some  thoughtfulness  of  temper  ;  and  the 
rest,  which  is  opened  only  once  a  year,  cannot  be  imparted 


FMERSON,  GOETHE,  AND  CARLYLE.         393 

save  to  those  whom  we  are  sending  forth  as  finished. 
That  last  religion  which  arises  from  the  reverence  of 
what  is  beneath  us ;  that  veneration  of  the  contradictory, 
the  hated,  the  avoided,  we  give  each  of  our  pupils  in 
small  portions,  by  way  of  outfit,  along  with  him  into 
the  world,  merely  that  he  may  know  where  more  is  to  be 
had,  should  such  a  want  spring  up  within  him.  I  invite 
you  to  return  hither  at  the  end  of  a  year,  to  visit  our 
general  festival,  and  see  how  far  your  son  is  advanced  : 
then  shall  you  be  admitted  into  the  Sanctuary  of 
Sorrow." 

In  this  idea  of  the  worship  of  sorrow  Goethe  rises 
to  his  highest  and  purest  thought,  and  joins  his  own 
epoch  to  the  preceding  epoch.  History  is  made  con 
tinuous.  Without  this  insight  the  modern  world 
breaks  off  from  the  old  world  with  the  idea  of  indi 
vidual  culture,  and  reverts  to  a  sort  of  barbarism. 
Eefined  selfishness,  enlightened  self-interest,  cold, 
calculating  understanding,  supreme  individualism,  is 
the  dry-rot  of  character ;  and  it  is  the  special  form 
in  which  the  diabolic  makes  its  appearance  in  an  age 
of  science.  This  is  the  meaning  of  Mephistopheles, 
whose  spiritual  import  is  so  well  expressed  by  Emer 
son  in  his  "  Representative  Men,"  in  a  passage  that 
shows  the  significance  of  Goethe's  work  in  litera 
ture  :  — 

"  Take  the  most  remarkable  example  that  could  occur  of 
this  tendency  to  verify  every  term  in  popular  use.  The 
devil  had  played  an  important  part  in  mythology  in  all 
times.  Goethe  would  have  no  word  that  does  not  cover  a 


394  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

thing.  The  same  measure  will  still  serve  :  '  I  have  never 
heard  of  any  crime  which  I  might  not  have  committed/ 
So  he  flies  at  the  throat  of  this  imp.  He  shall  be  real ; 
he  shall  be  modern ;  he  shall  be  European ;  he  shall  dress 
like  a  gentleman,  and  accept  the  manners,  and  walk  in 
the  streets,  and  be  well  initiated  in  the  life  of  Vienna,  and 
of  Heidelberg,  in  1820,  — or  he  shall  not  exist.  Accord 
ingly,  he  stripped  him  of  mythologic  gear,  of  horns,  cloven 
foot,  harpoon  tail,  brimstone,  and  blue-fire,  and,  instead  of 
looking  in  books  and  pictures,  looked  for  him  in  his  own 
mind,  in  every  shade  of  coldness,  selfishness,  and  unbelief 
that,  in  crowds  or  in  solitude,  darkens  over  the  human 
thought,  —  and  found  that  the  portrait  gained  reality  and 
terror  by  everything  he  added  and  by  everything  he 
took  away.  He  found  that  the  essence  of  this  hobgoblin, 
which  had  hovered  in  shadow  about  the  habitations  of 
men  ever  since  there  were  men,  was  pure  intellect,  applied 

—  as  always  there  is  a  tendency  —  to  the  service  of  the 
senses  j  and  he  flung  into  literature,  in  his  Mephistopheles, 
the  first  organic  figure  that  has  been  added  for  some  ages, 
and  which  will  remain  as  long  as  the  Prometheus." 

Mephistopheles  is  the  devil  that  tempts  men  of 
culture.  Not  merely  nor  chiefly  in  sensuous  things, 
but  rather  in  sceptical  coldness  towards  one's  fellow- 
men.  The  preference  of  one's  higher  self  it  may  be, 

—  the  higher  self  of  culture,  —  of  refined  taste,  insight, 
purity  that  keeps  aloof  and  is  pharisaic  —  is  Mephis- 
tophelian. 

This  element, — the  element  of  Goethe's  devil, — 
strange  to  .say,  is  the  element  that  is  generally  rec 
ognized  as  Goethe's  ideal.  Olympian  serenity  and 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.         395 

self-seeking  in  the  midst  of  all  the  sorrow  and  evil 
that  prevails  in  the  world  is  supposed  to  be  Goethe's 
conception  of  the  divine. 

Even  Emerson,  although  possessed  of  the  piercing 
vision  of  a  seer,  discovers  only  so  much  in  him.  He 
does  justice  to  this  ideal  by  accrediting  it  with  a  com 
paratively  lofty  aim.  He  says  of  Goethe  :  — 

"  The  old  Eternal  genius  who  built  the  world  has  con 
fided  himself  more  to  this  man  than  to  any  other.  I  dare 
not  say  that  Goethe  ascended  to  the  highest  grounds  from 
which  genius  has  spoken.  He  has  not  worshipped  the 
highest  unity ;  he  is  incapable  of  a  self-surrender  to  the 
moral  sentiment.  There  are  nobler  strains  in  poetry  than 
any  he-  has  sounded.  There  are  writers  poorer  in  talent, 
whose  tone  is  purer  and  more  touches  the  heart.  Goethe 
can  never  be  dear  to  men.  His  is  not  even  the  devotion 
to  pure  truth ;  but  to  truth  for  the  sake  of  culture.  He 
has  no  aims  less  large  than  the  conquest  of  universal 
nature,  of  universal  truth,  to  be  his  portion  ;  a  man  not 
to  be  bribed,  nor  deceived,  nor  overawed  ;  of  a  stoical  self- 
command  and  self-denial,  and  having  one  test  for  all  men,  — 
What  can  you  teach  me  1  All  possessions  are  valued  by  him 
for  that  only  ;  rank,  privileges,  health,  time,  being  itself." 

"  From  him  nothing  was  hid,  nothing  withholden.  The 
lurking  daemons  sat  to  him,  and  the  saint  who  saw  the 
daemons  :  and  the  metaphysical  elements  took  form. 
'  Piety  itself  is  no  aim,  but  only  a  means,  whereby  through 
inward  peace  we  may  attain  the  highest  culture.'  " 

"  Enmities  he  has  none.  Enemy  of  him  you  may  be,  — 
if  so  you  shall  teach  him  aught  which  your  good-will  can 
not,  —  were  it  only  what  experience  will  accrue  from  your 


396  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

ruin.     Enemy  and  welcome,  but  enemy  on  high  terms. 
He  cannot  hate  anybody  ;  his  time  is  worth  too  much." 

"  In  this  aim  of  culture,  which  is  the  genius  of  his 
works,  is  their  power.  The  idea  of  absolute  eternal  truth 
without  reference  to  my  own  enlargement  by  it,  is  higher. 
The  surrender  to  the  torrent  of  poetic  inspiration  is  higher ; 
but  compared  with  any  motives  on  which  books  are  written 
ill  England  and  America,  this  is  very  truth,  and  has  power 
to  inspire  which  belongs  to  truth.  Thus  has  he  brought 
back  to  a  book  some  of  its  ancient  might  and  dignity." 

This  view  of  Goethe  is  illustrated  still  further,  and 
its  limitation  indicated  in  what  Emerson  tells  us  of 
"  Wilhelm  Meister  "  :  — 

" '  Wilhelm  Meister  '  is  a  novel  in  every  sense,  the  first 
of  its  kind,  called  by  its  admirers  the  only  delineation  of 
modern  society,  —  as  if  other  novels,  those  of  Scott,  for 
example,  dealt  with  costume  and  condition,  this  with  the 
spirit  of  life.  It  is  a  book  over  which  some  veil  is  still 
drawn.  It  is  read  by  very  intelligent  persons  with  wonder 
and  delight.  It  is  preferred  by  some  such  to  Hamlet,  as 
a  work  of  genius.  I  suppose  no  book  of  this  century  can 
compare  with  it  in  its  delicious  sweetness,  so  new,  so  pro 
voking  to  the  mind,  gratifying  it  with  so  many  and  so 
solid  thoughts,  just  insights  into  life,  and  manners,  and 
characters  ;  so  many  good  hints  for  the  conduct  of  life,  so 
many  unexpected  glimpses  into  a  higher  sphere,  and  never 
a  trace  of  rhetoric  or  dulness.  A  very  provoking  book  to 
the  curiosity  of  young  men  of  genius,  but  a  very  unsatis 
factory  one.  Lovers  of  light  reading,  those  who  look  in 
it  for  the  entertainment  they  find  in  a  romance,  are  disap 
pointed.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  begin  it  with  the 


EMERSOX,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.         397 

higher  hope  to  read  in  it  a  worthy  history  of  genius,  and 
the  just  award  of  the  laurel  to  its  toils  and  denials,  have 
also  reason  to  complain.  We  had  an  English  romance 
here,  not  long  ago,  professing  to  embody  the  hope  of  a 
new  age,  and  to  unfold  the  political  hope  of  the  party 
called  '  Young  England/  in  which  the  only  reward  of 
virtue  is  a  seat  in  Parliament,  and  a  peerage.  Goethe's 
romance  has  a  conclusion  as  lame  and  immoral.  George 
Sand,  in  '  Consuelo  '  and  its  continuation,  has  sketched  a 
truer  and  more  dignified  picture.  In  the  progress  of  the 
story  the  characters  of  the  hero  and  heroine  expand  at  a 
rate  that  shivers  the  porcelain  chess-table  of  aristocratic 
convention  :  they  quit  the  society  and  habits  of  their  rank ; 
they  lose  their  wealth ;  they  become  the  servants  of  great 
ideas,  and  of  the  most  general  social  ends ;  until,  at  last, 
the  hero,  who  is  the  centre  and  fountain  of  an  association 
for  the  rendering  of  the  noblest  benefits  to  the  human 
race,  no  longer  answers  to  his  own  titled  name :  it  sounds 
foreign  and  remote  in  his  ear.  '  I  am  only  man,'  he  says } 
1 1  breathe  and  work  for  man,'  and  this  in  poverty  and 
extreme  sacrifices.  Goethe's  hero,  on  the  contrary,  has 
so  many  weaknesses  and  impurities,  and  keeps  such  bad 
company,  that  the  sober  English  public,  when  the  book 
was  translated,  were  disgusted.  And  yet  it  is  so  crammed 
with  wisdom,  with  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  with 
knowledge  of  laws  ;  the  persons  so  truly  and  subtly  drawn, 
and  with  such  few  strokes,  and  not  a  word  too  much,  the 
book  remains  ever  so  new  and  unexhausted,  that  we  must 
even  let  it  go  its  way,  and  be  willing  to  get  what  good 
from  it  we  can,  assured  that  it  has  only  begun  its  office, 
and  has  millions  of  readers  yet  to  serve. 

"  The   argument  is  the  passage  of  a  democrat  to  the 


398  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

aristocracy,  using  both  words  in  their  best  sense.  And 
this  passage  is  not  made  in  any  mean  or  creeping  way,  but 
through  the  hall  door.  Nature  and  character  assist,  and 
the  rank  is  made  real  by  sense  and  probity  in  the  nobles. 
No  generous  youth  can  escape  this  charm  of  reality  in  the 
book,  so  that  it  is  highly  stimulating  to  intellect  and 
courage." 

Were  it  true,  as  Emerson  supposes,  that  Goethe's 
view  of  the  world  places  self- culture  supreme,  and 
without  subordinating  it  to  altruism,  there  would  be 
the  most  serious  grounds  for  denying  to  Goethe  his 
rank  as  one  of  the  four  great  world-poets,  —  a  rank, 
as  we  shall  see,  that  is  actually  assigned  to  him  by 
Emerson  himself.  Emerson  sees  clearly  enough  the 
place  of  Goethe  in  literature,  but  without  being  able 
thoroughly  to  account  for  it. 

Dante,  too,  he  ranks  with  Homer  and  Shakspeare ; 
not  because  he  sees  the  validity  of  Dante's  message 
to  mankind,  but  for  his  obvious  historic  importance 
in  literature. 

One  of  the  most  wonderful  and  instructive  of 
Emerson's  poems  is  the  "  Test  and  Solution,"  giving 
us  his  supreme  critical  insight,  and  his  canon  of 
highest  honor  in  literature. 

The  Muse  speaks  :  — 

"I  hung  my  verses  in  the  wind, 
Time  and  tide  their  faults  may  find. 
All  were  winnowed  through  and  through, 
Five  lines  lasted  sound  and  true; 
Five  were  smelted  in  a  pot 
Than  the  South  more  fierce  and  hot; 


EMERSOX,  GOETHE,  AND  CARLYLE.          399 

These  the  siroc  could  not  melt, 
Fire  their  fiercer  flaming  felt, 
And  the  meaning  was  more  white 
Thau  July's  meridian  light. 
Sunshine  cannot  bleach  the  snow, 
Kor  time  unmake  what  poets  know. 
Have  you  eyes  to  find  the  five 
"Which  five  hundred  did  survive  ? " 

The  Muse  makes  her  own  answer  to  the  riddle ; 
the  same  Muse  that  "  sung  alway  by  Jove,"  even  "  at 
the  dawn  of  the  first  clay."  This  Muse  sat  alone, 
crowned  with  stars,  and  for  long  ages  strove  to  mix 
the  stagnant  earth  with  thought.  Her  song  prevailed 
on  the  spawning  slime  ;  the  fierce  elements  were 
tamed;  wolves  shed  their  fangs;  and  the  earth  smiled 
in  flowers  when  man  was  born.  The  shepherd  races 
of  Asia  with  their  tents,  the  civilization  of  Egypt 
with  its  granite  architecture,  came  first;  and  then 
stepped  forth  the  perfect  Greek :  — 

"  That  wit  and  joy  might  find  a  tongue, 
And  earth  grow  civil.  Homer  sung." 

Homer  then  wrote  the  first  of  the  five  lines  that 
survived  the  five  hundred.  But  who  is  the  second  of 
the  five  gifts  of  the  Muse  ? 

The  Muse  proceeds  to  tell  how,  having  flown  from 
Greece  to  Italy,  she  brooded  long  and  held  her  peace, 
being  accustomed  to  sing  when  not  expected.  Some 
times  she  unlocks  doors  of  new  delight,  singing  wit 
and  joy  to  men  in  evil  times ;  on  other  occasions  she 
appalls  men  with  a  bitter  horoscope,  and  fills  them 
with  spasms  of  terror:  — 


400  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

"  So  I  folded  me  in  fears, 
And  Dante  searched  the  triple  spheres, 
Moulding  nature  at  his  will, 
So  shaped,  so  colored,  swift  or  still, 
And,  sculptor-like,  his  large  design 
Etched  on  Alp  and  Apennine." 

Dante,  then,  is  the  second  of  the  great  world-poets. 
The  characterization  of  his  genius  is  by  no  means  so 
happy  as  that  of  the  next  following :  — 

"Seethed  in  mists  of  Penmanmaur, 
Taught  by  Plinlimmon's  Druid  power, 
England's  genius  filled  all  measure 
Of  heart  and  soul,  of  strength  and  pleasure, 
Gave  to  the  mind  its  emperor, 
And  life  was  larger  than  before: 
Nor  sequent  centuries  could  hit 
Orbit  and  sum  of  Shakspearc's  wit. 
The  men  Avho  lived  with  him  became 
Poets,  for  the  air  was  fame." 

The  first  three  favorites  of  the  Muse  do  not  sur 
prise  us ;  they  have  long  been  chosen  by  the  world  at 
large.  But  the  fourth  has  not  yet  been  found  by  the 
common  consent  of  mankind.  He  is  regarded  as  a 
religious  genius,  but  not  as  a  poet :  — 

"  Far  in  the  North,  where  polar  night 
Holds  in  check  the  frolic  light, 
In  trance  iipborne  past  mortal  goal 
The  Swede  Emanuel  leads  the  soul. 
Through  snows  above,  mines  underground, 
The  inks  of  Erebus  he  found; 
Rehearsed  to  men  the  damned  wails 
On  which  the  seraph  music  sails. 
In  spirit-worlds  he  trod  alone, 
But  walked  the  earth  unmarked,  unknown. 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.          401 

The  near  by-stander  caught  no  sound,  — 
Yet  they  who  listened  far  aloof 
Heard  rendings  of  the  skyey  roof, 
And  felt,  beneath,  the  quaking  ground; 
And  his  air-sown,  unheeded  words, 
In  the  next  age,  are  flaming  swords." 

Recalling  to  mind  our  definition  of  the  poetic,  and 
laying  stress  on  the  function  of  seeing  the  spiritual 
meaning  of  the  natural,  we  may  perhaps  feel  the 
force  of  the  same  reasons  that  led  Emerson  to  place 
Swedenborg  in  the  rank  of  the  great  poets.  We  cer 
tainly  gain  a  hint  of  the  powerful  personal  influence 
which  he  exercised  on  Emerson.  In  the  "Representa 
tive  Men"  one  may  find  the  account  of  Swedenborg 
much  more  definite  and  satisfactory  than  that  of  any 
other  personage  honored  with  mention  there.  His  in 
ventory  of  the  Swede's  ideas  and  achievements  is  of  a 
character  to  justify  the  high  place  he  assigns  to  him. 
The  central  doctrine  of  correspondence  comes  near 
to  a  scientific  statement  of  the  contents  of  the  poet's 
vision,  and  we  may  well  believe  that  it  was  this 
especially  which  attracted  Emerson's  admiration  and 
study.  However  that  may  be,  certainly  literature, 
philosophy,  and  religion  have  "caught  no  sound/  and 
his  '  air-sown  words"  are  yet  unheeded;  although  it 
is  still  possible  that  the  prophecy  may  come  true,  and 
those  unheeded  words 

"  In  the  next  age  be  flaming  swords." 

The  four  great  names  in  literature  are  usually 
made  to  include  Homer,  Dante,  Shakspeare,  and 

26 


402  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Goethe.  If  Sweclenborg  is  added  as  a  fifth,  one  would 
expect  that  Plato  would  also  form  the  sixth,  or  even 
take  precedence  of  the  Swede.  Goethe's  claims  for 
a  place  among  the  five  immortals  are  set  forth  by  the 
Muse  in  these  lines  :  — 

"  In  newer  days  of  war  and  trade, 
Romance  forgot,  and  faith  decayed, 
When  Science  armed  and  guided  war, 
And  clerks  the  Janus-gates  unbar, 
When  France,  where  poet  never  grew, 
Halved  and  dealt  the  globe  anew, 
Goethe,  raised  o'er  joy  and  strife, 
Drew  the  firm  lines  of  Fate  and  Life, 
And  brought  Olympian  wisdom  down 
To  court  and  mart,  to  gown  and  town; 
Stooping,  his  finger  wrote  in  clay 
The  open  secret  of  to-day." 

And  with  these  the  Muse  concludes  :  — 

"  So  bloom  the  unfading  petals  five, 
And  verses  that  all  verse  outlive." 

Ill  discussing  Emerson's  appreciation  of  the  import 
of  Goethe  to  the  world,  we  come  upon  the  relation  of 
both  these  men  to  Carlyle.  For  it  is  undoubtedly 
to  Carlyle  that  Emerson's  diligence  in  the  study  of 
Goethe  is  due.  Most  profitable,  too,  it  is  to  consider 
the  differences  of  attitude  in  these  men  towards 
Goethe. 

"  Close  thy  Byron,  open  thy  Goethe,"  says  Carlyle 
to  the  gloomy  individual  plunged  in  the  lake  of  the 
"  everlasting  no." 

"Well  did  the  wisest  of  our  time  write:  'It  is  only 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.          403 

with  renunciation  that  life,  properly  speaking,  can  be 
said  to  begin.' " 

The  "  worship  of  sorrow  "  finds  in  Carlyle  a  readier 
votary  than  in  Emerson.  Here  is  his  most  eloquent 
apostrophe  to  it,  from  the  "Sartor  Eesartus"  (book  ii. 
chap.  9)  :  — 

"Poor,  wandering,  wayward  man  !  Art  thou  not  tried, 
and  beaten  with  many  stripes,  even  as  I  am  ?  Ever, 
whether  thou  bear  the  royal  mantle  or  the  beggar's  gabar 
dine,  art  thou  not  so  weary,  so  heavy-laden  ;  and  thy  Bed 
of  Eest  is  but  a  grave.  0  my  Brother,  my  Brother,  why 
cannot  I  shelter  thee  in  my  bosom,  and  wipe  away  all 
tears  from  thy  eyes !  Truly,  the  din  of  many-voiced  Life, 
which  in  this  solitude,  with  the  mind's  organ,  I  could  hear, 
was  no  longer  a  maddening  discord,  but  a  melting  one  : 
like  inarticulate  cries,  and  sobbings  of  a  dumb  creature, 
which  in  the  ear  of  Heaven  are  prayers.  The  poor  Earth, 
with  her  poor  joys,  was  now  my  needy  Mother,  not  my 
cruel  step-dame ;  Man,  with  his  so  mad  Wants  and  so  mean 
Endeavors,  had  become  the  dearer  to  me ;  and  even  for  his 
sufferings  and  his  sins,  I  now  first  named  him  brother. 
Thus  was  I  standing  in  the  porch  of  that  '  Sanctuary  of 
Sorrow ; '  by  strange,  steep  ways,  had  I  too  been  guided 
thither ;  and  ere  long  its  sacred  gates  would  open,  and  the 
4  Divine  Depth  of  Sorrow '  lie  disclosed  to  me.  .  .  . 

"  Small  is  it  that  thou  canst  trample  the  Earth  with 
its  injuries  under  thy  feet,  as  old  Greek  Zeno  trained 
thee  :  thou  canst  love  the  Earth  while  it  injures  thee  ;  for 
this,  a  Greater  than  Zeno  was  needed,  and  he  too  was  sent. 
Knowest  thou  that  '"Worship  of  Sorrow'?  The  Temple 
hereof,  founded  some  eighteen  centuries  ago,  now  lies  in 


404  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

ruins,  overgrown  with  jungle,  the  habitation  of  doleful 
creatures  :  nevertheless,  venture  forward ;  in  a  low  crypt, 
arched  out  of  falling  fragments,  thou  fmdest  the  Altar  still 
there,  and  its  sacred  Lamp  perennially  burning." 

In  that  most  wonderful  of  all  recent  books,  the  "Cor 
respondence  of  Caiiyle  and  Emerson,"1  the  highest 
interest  attaches  to  this  interpretation  of  Goethe  and 
to  the  practical  lessons  drawn  by  each  of  the  friends 
from  it.  Nov.  20,  1834,  Emerson  writes  :  — 

"  Truth  is  ever  born  in  a  manger,  but  is  compensated 
by  living  till  it  has  all  fools  for  its  kingdom.  Far,  far 
better  seems  to  me  the  unpopularity  of  this  Philosophical 
Poem  (shall  I  call  it?),  '  Sartor  Kesartus,'  than  the  adulation 
that  followed  your  eminent  friend  Goethe.  With  him  I 
am  becoming  better  acquainted,  but  mine  must  be  qualified 
admiration.  It  is  a  singular  piece  of  good  nature  in  you 
to  apotheosize  him.  I  cannot  but  regard  it  as  his  misfor 
tune,  with  conspicuous  bad  influence  on  his  genius,  —  that 
velvet  life  he  led.  .  .  .  Then,  the  Puritan  in  me  accepts 
no  apology  for  bad  morals  in  such  as  he.  We  can  tolerate 
vice  in  a  splendid  nature  whilst  that  nature  is  battling 
with  the  brute  majority  in  defence  of  some  human  princi 
ple.  The  sympathy  his  manhood  and  his  misfortunes  call 
out  adopts  even  his  faults ;  but  genius  pampered,  acknowl 
edged,  crowned,  can  only  retain  our  sympathy  by  turning 
the  same  force  once  expended  against  outward  enemies 
now  against  inward,  and  carrying  forward  and  planting 
the  standard  of  Oromasdes  so  many  leagues  farther  on 
into  the  envious  Dark." 

l  Boston  :  James  E.  Osgood  &  Co.,  1883. 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AND  CARLYLE.         405 

Carlyle  replies :  — 

"  Your  objections  to  Goethe  are  very  natural,  and  even 
bring  you  nearer  me  :  nevertheless,  I  am  by  no  means 
sure  that  it  were  not  your  wisdom,  at  this  moment,  to  set 
about  learning  the  German  Language,  with  a  view  towards 
studying  him  mainly  !  I  do  not  assert  this ;  but  the  truth 
of  it  would  not  surprise  me.  Believe  me,  it  is  impossible 
you  can  be  more  a  Puritan  than  I ;  nay,  I  often  feel  as  if 
I  were  far  too  much  so  :  but  John  Knox  himself,  could 
he  have  seen  the  peaceable  impregnable  fidelity  of  that 
man's  mind,  and  how  to  him  also  Duty  was  Infinite,  — 
Kuox  would  have  passed  on,  wondering,  not  reproaching. 
But  I  will  tell  you  in  a  word  why  I  like  Goethe  :  his  is  the 
only  healthy  mind,  of  any  extent,  that  I  have  discovered 
in  Europe  for  long  generations  ;  it  was  he  that  first  con 
vincingly  proclaimed  to  me  (convincingly,  for  I  saw  it 
done) :  Behold,  even  in  this  scandalous  Sceptico-Epicu- 
rean  generation,  when  all  is  gone  but  hunger  and  cant, 
it  is  still  possible  that  Man  be  a  man  !  For  which  last 
Evangel,  the  confirmation  and  rehabilitation  of  all  other 
Evangels  whatsoever,  how  can  I  be  too  grateful  ]  On  the 
whole,  I  suspect  you  yet  know  only  Goethe  the  Heathen 
(Ethnic)  ;  but  you  will  know  Goethe  the  Christian  by  and 
by,  and  like  that  one  far  better." 

In  another  letter  (Dec.  9, 1840)  :  — 

"  Even  what  you  say  of  Goethe  gratifies  me  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  few  things  yet  spoken  of  him  from  personal  insight, 
the  sole  kind  of  things  that  should  be  spoken  !  You  call 
kirn  actual,  not  ideal ;  there  is  truth  in  that  too  ;  and  yet  at 
bottom  is  not  the  whole  truth  rather  this  :  The  actual  well 


406  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

seen  is  the  ideal  1  The  actual,  what  really  is  and  exists  : 
the  past,  the  present,  the  future  no  less,  do  all  lie  there  ! 
Ah  yes  !  one  day  you  will  find  that  this  sunny-looking, 
courtly  Goethe  held  veiled  in  him  a  Prophetic  sorrow  deep 
as  Dante's,  —  all  the  nobler  to  me  and  to  you,  that  he 
could  so  hold  it.  I  believe  this ;  no  man  can  see  as  he  sees, 
that  has  not  suffered  and  striven  as  man  seldom  did." 

In  a  certain  obvious  sense  Goethe  and  Carlyle  and 
Emerson  preach  the  same  doctrine, — the  doctrine  of 
our  age.  The  age  of  science  is  the  age  of  ascent  out 
of  conventionalities,  out  of  mere  prescription  and 
ignorant  following  of  law  and  custom  into  individual 
insight  into  the  rational  necessity  of  the  law. 

But  which  of  the  three  has  seen  and  stated  the  prob 
lem  of  the  time  in  its  entirety  ?  Which  has  found  the 
solution  ?  Goethe,  it  must  be  confessed,  and  Goethe 
alone.  Goethe  has  understood  human  history  as  a 
growth,  and  has  seen  the  inevitable  approach  of  democ 
racy  as  something  to  be  prepared  for  by  all  nations. 
Goethe  has  studied  the  spirit  and  appliances  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  seen  that  the  rise  of  the  scientific 
tendency  is  the  rise  of  scepticism  against  what  is  pre 
scribed.  Faust  has  studied  "  Philosophic,  Juristerei, 
und  Medicin  .  .  .  auch  Theologie,"  and  finds  himself 
wise  but  unhappy  because  he  doubts  the  possibility 
of  knowing  the  Divine,  or  of  ascending  into  the  image 
of  the  First  Principle  of  the  Universe.  Not  only  is 
he  unequal  to  the  comprehension  of  Nature,  but  even 
to  that  of  human  nature.  He  cannot  approach  the 
Erd-Geist,  the  Microcosm,  or  have  a  comprehension 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.          407 

of  the  mind  of  the  .race  except  through  loss  of  in 
dividuality.  The  lesson  that  through  social  union  the 
individual  is  divinely  reinforced  and  comes  to  equal 
the  Absolute,  he  has  not  yet  learned.  This  lesson, 
however,  it  shall  be  the  mission  of  the  entire  drama 
of  Faust  to  teach. 

Carlyle  fulminates  during  his  entire  literary  career 
against  the  doctrine  of  individualism  in  its  form  of 
revolutionary  protest,  and  in  favor  of  individualism 
as  manifested  by  men  in  power  or  supported  by  insti 
tutions.  This  is  an  implicit  contradiction,  and  utterly 
misses  the  point  of  Goethe's  solution.  Carlyle  sees 
the  divinity  of  institutions,  but  not  the  mediation  of 
the  individual  by  them. 

Emerson,  on  the  other  hand,  sets  forth  personal 
morals  as  the  solution  of  individualism.  He  confirms 
Goethe's  belief  in  individual  perfection  as  the  result  of 
the  entire  human  process  on  the  planet.  All  the  world 
is  for  man,  and  all  human  institutions  are  for  the  per 
fection  of  the  individual.  But  Emerson  does  not  lay 
great  stress  on  the  cardinal  institutions  of  man.  The 
Church  and  the  State  are  not  exhaustively  studied  by 
him  as  developments  of  essential  humanity.  Even  civil 
society  and  the  family  are  not  specially  prized  as 
something  divine,  above  the  accidents  of  the  individ 
ual.  The  Transcendental  reformers  attacked  in  one 
•way  or  another  all  of  these  institutions.  It  is  true 
that  Emerson  did  not  partake  in  the  merely  negative 
excursions  of  the  Transcendentalists,  but  always  saw 
the  affirmative  aspect  of  things  that  had  got  into 


408  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

existence.  In  his  lecture  on  "  The  Reformer  and  the 
Transeendentalist,"  in  1841,  he  said:  If  the  institu 
tion  of  property  seems  to  deprive  the  individual  of 
his  birthright  to  a  piece  of  land  to  live  on,  yet  it 
has  preserved  for  him  the  rational  achievements  of 
the  race,  "  libraries,  museums  and  galleries,  colleges, 
palaces,  hospitals,  observatories,  cities,  —  Eome  and 
Memphis,  Constantinople  and  Vienna,  and  Paris  and 
London,  and  New  York."  But  what  socialist  could 
state  better  the  negative  side  ?  "  There  is  a  cunning 
juggle  in  riches.  I  observe  that  they  take  somewhat 
for  everything  they  give.  I  look  bigger,  but  am  less  ; 
I  have  more  clothes  but  am  not  so  warm,  more  armor 
but  less  courage,  more  books  but  less  wit." 

Goethe,  who  lived  through  all  the  phases  of  the 
French  Revolution,  saw  the  truth  in  the  conservative 
instinct  that  supports  institutions  even  when  they 
have  become  worn  out,  as  well  as  the  truth  of  the 
radicalism  that  wishes  to  reform  what  it  does  not 
understand.  Goethe  was  a  prophet  in  discerning  the 
fruits  of  the  era  of  labor-saving  machinery  in  forms  of 
government  and  creeds  and  social  caste.  Especially 
in  the  novelettes  that  are  found  in  Meister's  Wander- 
jakre  one  may  find  our  social  problem  of  the  readjust 
ment  of  vocations  stated,  as  well  as  the  solution  by 
means  of  a  systematic  migration  and  a  general  edu 
cation.  How  to  manage  in  order  to  meet  an  age  of 
revolutions  in  the  State  and  in  civil  society  is  indi 
cated  by  the  particulars  of  an  organization  formed  by 
the  leading  spirits  as  described  in  that  novel  for  the 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AND  CAELYLE.         409 

purchase  and  improvement   of  property  in  various 
parts  of  the  world. 

Carlyle  shows  in  the  "  Sartor  Eesartus  "  how  deeply 
he  had  pondered  the  problems  of  sociology ;  but  in  all 
the  latter  years  of  his  life  he  seems  to  have  treated 
such  problems  from  the  stand-point  of  the  nation,  and 
to  have  made  the  State  of  the  most  importance.  His 
"  French  Revolution  "  is  an  epic  poem,  and  the  "  Fred 
erick  the  Great"  must  altogether  precede  every  history 
yet  written  as  a  complete  study  of  the  genesis  and 
mature  development  of  one  of  the  greatest  powers  of 
the  world.  It  is  the  history  of  Europe  in  essential 
particulars  for  its  most  important  century.  But  the 
problems  in  sociology  and  the  meaning  of  the  move 
ments  in  natural  science  and  labor-saving  machinery, 
the  printing-press  and  the  daily  newspaper  and  local 
self-government,  humanitarianism,  —  all  these  things 
which  were  so  significant  in  Goethe's  eyes  are  not 
seen  in  their  true  light  by  Carlyle.  Perhaps  we  may 
say,  too,  that  Emerson  undervalues  them  in  compari 
son  with  the  ethical  culture  of  the  individual.  With 
ethics,  it  is  true,  man  is  complete  in  all  ages.  But  the 
Orientals  are  precocious  in  their  ethics  only  for  the  rea 
son  of  the  meagre  development  of  the  State  with  them. 
Crude  States  without  written  constitutions,  pure  des 
potisms,  require  the  best  ethical  education  of  their 
rulers  to  make  them  tolerable.  Where  all  government 
is  conducted  by  an  irresponsible  ruler,  the  happiness  of 
the  people  depends  entirely  upon  the  wisdom  and  mod 
eration  of  the  despot.  Where  the  superior  in  rank  or 


410  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

in  age  holds  despotic  power  over  the  inferior  or  the 
younger,  ethics  alone  can  ameliorate  the  lot  of  the  peo 
ple  ;  for  each  citizen  has  his  despot  above  him,  even 
though  he  may  be  despot  in  his  turn  to  those  below 
him.  The  invention  of  constitutional  forms  protects 
the  governed  from  those  who  govern;  and  Europe  and 
America  care  very  little  whether  their  rulers  are 
personally  amiable  or  otherwise.  Hence  the  ethical 
message  is  not  itself  of  so  weighty  a  character  as 
the  one  based  on  institutions,  —  on  the  realization  in 
the  world,  of  man's  higher  self  in  social  forms,  —  the 
"  Grand  Man,"  as  called  by  Swedenborgians. 

Froude  tells  us  l  in  a  very  pointed  manner  that 
he  regards  Carlyle's  message  as  negative  to  the  ten 
dencies  of  the  nineteenth  century.  If  modern  civ 
ilization  is  on  the  right  road,  then  Carlyle  was  all 
wrong :  — 

"  An  adequate  estimate  of  Carlyle's  work  in  this  world 
is  not  at  present  possible.  He  was  a  teacher  and  a 
prophet  in  the  Jewish  sense  of  the  word.  The  prophe 
cies  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  have  become  a  part  of  the 
permanent  spiritual  inheritance  of  mankind,  because 
events  proved  that  they  had  interpreted  correctly  the 
signs  of  their  own  times,  and  their  prophecies  were  ful 
filled.  Carlyle,  like  them,  believed  that  he  had  a  special 
message  to  deliver  to  the  present  age.  Whether  he  was 
correct  in  that  belief,  and  whether  his  message  was  a  true 
message,  remains  to  be  seen.  He  has  told  us  that  our 

1  Thomas  Carlyle  :  A  History  of  the  first  Forty  Years  of  his  Life  ; 
Preface. 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.         411 

most  cherished  ideas  of  political  liberty,  with  their  kin 
dred  corollaries,  are  mere  illusions,  and  that  the  progress 
which  has  seemed  to  go  along  with  them  is  a  progress 
towards  anarchy  and  social  dissolution.  If  he  was  wrong, 
he  has  misused  his  powers.  The  principles  of  his  teach 
ing  are  false.  He  has  offered  himself  as  a  guide  upon  a 
road  of  which  he  had  no  knowledge  ;  and  his  own  desire 
for  himself  would  be  the  speediest  oblivion  both  of  his 
person  and  his  works.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  been 
right;  if,  like  his  great  predecessors,  he  has  read  truly 
the  tendencies  of  this  modern  age  of  ours,  and  his  teach 
ing  is  authenticated  by  facts,  then  Carlyle,  too,  will  take 
his  place  among  the  inspired  seers,  and  he  will  shine  on, 
another  fixed  star  in  the  intellectual  sky.  Time  only  can 
show  how  this  will  be." 

To  Americans  who  have  faith  in  their  form  of 
government  as  the  coming  State-form  for  all  civilized 
nations,  this  method  of  putting  Caiiyle's  claims 
seems  cruel  and  unjust.  If  local  self-government 
shall  triumph  in  history,  then  Thomas  Carlyle  shall 
have  been  only  a  false  prophet !  One  hopes  there  is 
a  different  alternative. 

Emerson's  praise  of  the  "History  of  Frederick" 
shows  how  an  optimist  and  a  thorough  democrat  could 
find  in  Carlyle's  latest  work  the  most  discerning  book 
ever  written : 1  — 

"  Meantime  here  has  come  into  the  country  three  months 
ago  a  book  of  Carlyle,  '  History  of  Frederick,'  infinitely 

1  From  Emerson's  Diary;  see  "Correspondence  of  Carlyle  and 
Emerson,"  vol.  ii.  p.  272. 


412  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

the  wittiest  book  that  ever  was  written,  a  book  that  one 
would  think  the  English  people  would  rise  up  in  mass 
to  thank  him  for,  by  cordial  acclamation,  and  congratu 
late  themselves  that  such  a  head  existed  among  them, 
and  much-sympathizing  and  on-its-own-account-reading 
America  would  make  a  new  treaty  extraordinary  of  joy 
ful,  grateful  delight  with  England,  in  acknowledgment  of 
such  a  donation,  —  a  'book  with  so  many  memorable  and 
heroic  facts.  .  .  .  And  withal  a  book  that  is  a  Judgment 
Day,  for  its  moral  verdict  on  the  men  and  nations  and 
manners  of  modern  times ;  with  its  wonderful  new  sys 
tem  of  mnemonics,  whereby  great  and  insignificant  men 
are  ineffaceably  ticketed  and  marked  in  the  memory  by 
what  they  were,  had,  and  did." 

With  this  transcendent  esteem  for  the  "  Frederick," 
Emerson  could  write  the  following  to  Carlyle  in 
1864,  severely  rebuking  the  latter's  disparagement  of 
America :  — 

"  I  have  in  these  last  years  lamented  that  you  had  not 
made  the  visit  to  America  which  in  earlier  years  you  pro 
jected  or  favored.  It  would  have  made  it  impossible  that 
your  name  should  be  cited  for  one  moment  on  the  side 
of  the  enemies  of  mankind.  Ten  days'  residence  in  this 
country  would  have  made  you  the  organ  of  the  sanity  of 
England  and  of  Europe  to  us  and  to  them,  and  have  shown 
you  the  necessities  and  aspirations  which  struggle  up  in 
our  Free  States,  which,  as  yet,  have  no  organ  to  others, 
and  are  ill  and  unsteadily  articulated  here.  .  .  .  Are 
English  of  this  day  incapable  of  a  great  sentiment  1  Can 
they  not  leave  cavilling  at  petty  failures,  and  bad  manners, 


EMERSOX,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.          413 

and  at  the  dunce  part  (always  the  largest  part  in  human 
affairs),  and  leap  to  the  suggestions  and  finger-pointings  of 
the  gods,  which,  above  the  understanding,  feed  the  hopes 
and  guide  the  wills  of  men?"1 

Directly  after  the  close  of  the  war  (Jan.  7,  1866) 
Emerson  wrote  on  the  same  theme :  — 

"  I  am  very  sorry  that  Jonathan  looks  so  unamiable  seen 
from  your  island.  Yet  I  have  too  much  respect  for  the 
writing  profession  to  complain  of  it.  It  is  a  necessity 
of  rhetoric  that  there  should  be  shades,  and,  I  suppose, 
geography  and  government  always  determine,  even  for 
the  greatest  wits,  where  they  shall  lay  their  shadows. 
But  I  have  always  the  belief  a  trip  across  the  sea  would 
have  abated  your  despair  of  us.  The  world  is  laid  out 
here  in  large  lots,  and  the  swing  of  natural  laws  is  shared 
by  the  population,  as  it  is  not  —  or  not  as  much  —  in  your 
feudal  Europe.  My  countrymen  do  not  content  me,  but 
they  are  susceptible  of  inspirations.  In  the  war  it  was 
humanity  that  showed  itself  to  advantage,  —  the  leaders 
were  prompted  and  corrected  by  the  intuitions  of  the  peo 
ple,  they  still  demanding  the  more  generous  and  decisive 
'measure,  and  giving  their  sons  and  their  estates  as  we  had 
no  example  before.  In  this  heat  they  had  sharper  per 
ceptions  of  policy,  of  the  ways  and  means  and  the  life  of 
nations,  and  on  every  side  we  read  or  heard  fate-words, 
in  private  letters,  in  railway  cars,  or  in  the  journals.  We 
were  proud  of  the  people,  and  believed  they  would  not  go 
down  from  this  height.  But  peace  came,  and  every  one 
ran  back  into  his  shop  again." 

1  Correspondence  of  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  vol.  ii.  pp.  2S5,  2S6. 


414  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

And  again  (Jan.  5,  1872):  — 

"  Meantime,  I  know  well  all  your  perversities,  and  give 
them  a  wide  berth.  They  seriously  annoy  a  great  many 
worthy  readers,  nations  of  readers  sometimes,  —  but  I  heap 
them  all  as  style,  and  read  them  as  I  read  Eabelais'  gigan 
tic  humors,  which  astonish  in  order  to  force  attention,  and 
by  arid  by  are  seen  to  be  the  rhetoric  of  a  highly  virtuous 
gentleman  who  swears" 

In  this  connection  here  are  a  few  passages  from 
Carlyle  showing  the  value  he  set  on  Emerson's 
writings,  and  also  the  limitations  he  set  on  his  admi 
ration  of  the  themes  selected :  — 

"  And  so  now  by  a  direct  transition  I  am  got  to  the 
Oration.  My  friend !  you  know  not  what  you  have  done 
for  me  there.  It  was  long  decades  of  years  that  I  had 
heard  nothing  but  the  infinite  jangling  and  jabbering,  and 
inarticulate  twittering  and  screeching,  and  my  soul  had 
sunk  down  sorrowful,  and  said  there  is  no  articulate  speak 
ing  then  any  more,  and  thou  art  solitary  among  stranger- 
creatures  !  and  lo,  out  of  the  West  comes  a  clear  utterance, 
clearly  recognizable  as  a  man's  voice,  and  I  have  a  kinsman 
and  brother ;  God  be  thanked  for  it !  I  could  have  wept 
to  read  that  speech ;  the  clear  high  melody  of  it  went 
tingling  through  my  heart ;  I  said  to  my  wife,  '  There, 
woman ! '  She  read ;  and  returned,  and  charges  me  to 
return  for  answer,  '  that  there  had  been  nothing  met  with 
like  it  since  Schiller  went  silent.'  My  brave  Emerson ! 
And  all  this  has  been  lying  silent,  quite  tranquil  in  him, 
these  seven  years,  and  the  '  vociferous  platitude  '  dinning 
his  ears  on  all  sides,  and  he  quietly  answering  no  word ; 
and  a  whole  world  of  Thought  has  silently  built  itself  in 


JEllERSOX,  GOETHE,  AXD  CARLYLE.         415 

these  calm  depths,  and,  the  day  being  come,  says  quite 
softly,  as  if  it  were  a  common  thing,  '  Yes,  I  ain  here  too.'  " 
(Dec.  8,  1837.) 

"  I  love  your l  Dial,'  and  yet  it  is  with  a  kind  of  shudder. 
You  seeni  to  me  in  danger  of  dividing  yourselves  from  the 
Fact  of  this  present  Universe,  in  which  alone,  ugly  as  it 
is,  can  I  find  any  anchorage,  and  soaring  away  after  Ideas, 
Beliefs,  Revelations,  and  such  like,  —  into  perilous  alti 
tudes,  as  I  think  ;  beyond  the  curve  of  perpetual  frost,  for 
one  thing  !  .  .  .  Surely  I  could  wish  you  returned  into 
your  own  poor  nineteenth  century,  its  follies  and  maladies, 
its  blind  or  half-blind,  but  gigantic  toilings,  its  laughter 
and  its  tears,  and  trying  to  evolve  in  some  measure  the 
hidden  Godlike  that  lies  in  it ;  — that  means  to  me  the  kind 
of  feat  for  literary  men.  Alas,  it  is  so  easy  to  screw  one's 
self  up  into  high  and  ever  higher  altitudes  of  Transcen 
dentalism,  and  see  nothing  under  one  but  the  everlasting 
snows  of  Himmalayah,  the  Earth  shrinking  to  a  Planet, 
and  the  indigo  firmament  sowing  itself  with  daylight  stars  ; 
easy  for  you,  for  me  :  but  whither  does  it  lead  1  I  dread 
always,  To  inanity  and  mere  injuring  of  lungs !  .  .  . 
"Well  I  do  believe,  for  one  thing,  a  man  has  no  right  to 
say  to  his  own  generation,  turning  quite  away  from  it, 
'  Be  damned ! '  It  is  the  whole  Past  and  the  whole 
Future,  this  same  cotton-spinning,  dollar-hunting,  cant 
ing  and  shrieking,  very  wretched  generation  of  ours. 
Come  back  into  it,  I  tell  you!"  (Aug.  29,  1842.) 

And  this  passage  is  the  most  severe  reassertion  of 
his  stand-point  as  against  that  of  Emerson  :  — 

"You  are  bountiful  abundantly  in  your  reception  of 
those  '  Latter-Day  Pamphlets  ; '  and  right  in  all  you  say 


416  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

of  them ;  —  and  yet  withal  you  are  not  right,  my  Friend, 
but  I  am !  Truly  it  does  behoove  a  man  to  know  the 
inmost  resources  of  this  universe,  and,  for  the  sake  both 
of  his  peace  and  of  his  dignity,  to  possess  his  soul  in 
patience,  and  look  nothing  doubting  (nothing  wincing 
even,  if  that  be  his  humor)  upon  all  things.  For  it  is 
most  indubitable  there  is  good  in  all ;  — -  and  if  you  even 
see  an  Oliver  Cromwell  assassinated,  it  is  certain  you  may 
get  a  cart-load  of  turnips  from  his  carcass.  Ah  me,  and  I 
suppose  we  had  too  much  forgotten  all  this,  or  there  had 
not  been  a  man  like  you  sent  to  show  it  us  so  emphatically ! 
Let  us  well  remember  it ;  and  yet  remember  too  that  it 
is  not  good  always,  or  ever,  to  be  '  at  ease  in  Zion ; '  good 
often  to  be  in  fierce  rage  in  Zion  ;  and  that  the  vile 
Pythons  of  this  Mud- World  do  verily  require  to  have  sun- 
arrows  shot  into  them,  and  red-hot  pokers  struck  through 
them,  according  to  occasion  :  woe  to  the  man  that  car 
ries  either  of  these  weapons,  and  does  not  use  it  in  their 
presence  !  "  (Nov.  14,  1850.) 

"  We  read,  at  first,  Tennyson's  Idyls,  with  profound 
recognition  of  the  finely  elaborated  execution,  and  also 
of  the  inward  perfection  of  vacancy,  —  and,  to  say  truth, 
with  considerable  impatience  at  being  treated  so  very  like 
infants,  though  the  lollipops  were  so  superlative.  We 
gladly  changed  for  one  Emerson's  '  English  Traits,'  and 
read  that  with  increasing  and  ever-increasing  satisfaction 
every  evening ;  blessing  Heaven  that  there  were  still  Books 
for  grown-up  people  too  !  That  truly  is  a  Book  all  full  of 
thoughts  like  winged  arrows  !  "  (Jan.  27,  1867.) 

Two  paragraphs  relative  to  the  United  States,  written, 
the  one  nearly  forty  years  after  the  other,  are  pleasant 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AND  CARLYLE.         417 

reading  to  Americans,  by  reason  of  vivid  memories  of 
words  of  a  different  tenor  from  the  same  source :  — 

"And  so  here,  looking  over  the  Water,  let  me  repeat  once 
more  what  I  believe  is  already  dimly  the  sentiment  of  all 
Englishmen,  Cisoceanic  and  Transoceanic,  that  we  and 
you  are  not  two  countries,  and  cannot  for  the  life  of  us 
be ;  but  only  two  parishes  of  one  country,  with  such  whole 
some  parish  hospitalities,  and  dirty  temporary  parish  feuds, 
as  we  see ;  both  of  which  brave  parishes  Yivant !  vivant ! 
And  among  the  glories  of  both  be  Yankee-doodle-doo,  and 
the  Felling  of  the  Western  Forest,  proudly  remembered ; 
and  for  the  rest,  by  way  of  parish  constable,  let  each  cheer 
fully  take  such  George  Washington  or  George  Guelph  as  it 
can  get,  and  bless  Heaven  !  I  am  weary  of  hearing  it  said, 
'  "We  love  the  Americans,'  'We  wish  well,'  etc.,  etc.  What 
in  God's  name  should  we  do  else?  "  (Aug.  12,  1834.) 

"  And  indeed  I  may  confess  to  you  that  the  doings  in 
that  region  are  not  only  of  a  big  character,  but  of  a  great ; 
—  and  that  in  my  occasional  explosions  against '  Anarchy,' 
and  my  inextinguishable  hatred  of  it,  I  privately  whisper 
to  myself,  '  Could  any  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  now,  or  Fried- 
rich,  or  most  perfect  Governor  you  could  hope  to  realize, 
guide  forward  what  is  America's  essential  task  at  present 
faster  or  more  completely  than  "  anarchic  America  "  herself 
is  now  doing  1 '  Such  '  Anarchy '  has  a  great  deal  to  say 
for  itself  (would  to  Heaven  ours  of  England  had  as 
much!),  and  points  towards  grand  Anti-Anarchies  in  the 
future ;  in  fact,  I  can  already  discern  in  it  huge  quantities 
of  Auti- Anarchy  in  the  '  impalpable-powder  '  condition  ; 
and  hope,  with  the  aid  of  centuries,  immense  things  from 
it,  in  my  private  mind  !"  (June  4,  1871.) 

27 


418  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

There  is  an  interesting  passage  in  "  The  Eepresen- 
tative  Men,"  in  which  Emerson  criticises  the  literary 
form  of  Goethe's  works.  It  is  suggested  by  the  criti 
cism  that  Carlyle  makes  on  Emerson's  style  :  — 

11  This  law-giver  [Goethe]  of  art  is  not  an  artist.  "Was 
it  that  he  knew  too  much,  that  his  sight  was  microscopic, 
and  interfered  with  the  just  perspective,  the  seeing  of  the 
whole  1  He  is  fragmentary  ;  a  writer  of  occasional  poems, 
and  of  an  encyclopaedia  of  sentences.  When  he  sits  down 
to  write  a  drama  or  a  tale,  he  collects  and  sorts  his  obser 
vations  from  a  hundred  sides,  and  combines  them  into  a 
body  as  fitly  as  he  can.  A  great  deal  refuses  to  incor 
porate.  This  he  adds  loosely,  as  letters  of  the  parties, 
leaves  from  their  journals,  or  the  like.  A  great  deal  is 
left  that  will  not  find  any  place.  This  the  book-binder 
alone  can  give  any  cohesion  to  ;  and  hence,  notwithstand 
ing  the  looseness  of  many  of  his  works,  we  have  volumes 
of  detached  paragraphs,  aphorisms,  xenien,  etc." 

I  have  on  another  occasion  discussed  the  mooted 
question  of  the  artistic  unity  of  Emerson's  prose  essays, 
endeavoring  to  show  that  the  unity  is  of  a  high  order, 
and  deserving  to  "be  called  "  dialectic,"  or  even  "  or 
ganic  "  unity.1  This  topic  is  not  of  special  interest  on 
this  occasion. 

In  conclusion,  I  will  refer  to  the  "  Song  of  Nature," 
in  which  Emerson  has  given  us  the  counterpart  of 
Goethe's  speech  of  the  Erd-Geist,  —  an  altogether 

1  See  "Atlantic  Monthly"  for  August,  1882,  and  "Journal  of 
Speculative  Philosophy"  for  April,  1884. 


EMERSON,  GOETHE,  AND   CARLYLE.         419 

noteworthy  performance,  by  reason  of  its  hopeful 
look  towards  the  future  of  man.  There  is  commen 
tary  in  it,  too,  for  the  poems  called  "The  Test"  and 
the  "Solution/'  which  we  have  already  considered.  I 
quote  the  closing  stanzas  :  — 

"  Twice  I  have  moulded  an  image, 
And  thrice  outstretched  my  hand, 
Made  one  of  day,  and  one  of  night, 
And  one  of  the  salt  sea-sand. 

"  One  in  a  Judsean  manger, 
And  one  by  Avon  stream, 
One  over  against  the  mouths  of  Xile, 
And  one  in  the  Academe. 

"I  moulded  kings  and  saviours, 
And  bards  o'er  kings  to  rule;  — 
But  fell  the  starry  influence  short, 
The  cup  was  never  full. 

"  Yet  whirl  the  glowing  wheels  once  more, 
And  mix  the  bowl  again; 
Seethe,  Fate!  the  ancient  elements, 
Heat,  cold,  wet,  dry,  and  peace,  and  pain. 

"Let  war  and  trade  and  creeds  and  song 
Blend,  ripen  race  on  race, 
The  sunburnt  world  a  man  shall  breed 
Of  all  the  zones,  and  countless  days. 

"No  ray  is  dimmed,  no  atom  -worn, 
My  oldest  force  is  good  as  new, 
And  the  fresh  rose  on  yonder  thorn 
Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  dew." 


420  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 


XVI. 
ION:    A  MONODY. 

BY  A.  BRONSON  ALCOTT. 


WHY,  oh,  ye  willows,  and  ye  pastures  bare, 
Why  will  ye  thus  your  blooms  so  late  delay, 
Wrap  in  chill  weeds  the  sere  and  sullen  day, 
And  cheerless  greet  me  wandering  in  despair? 
Tell  me,  ah,  tell  me  !  ye  of  old  could  tell  — 
Whither  my  vanished  Ion  now  doth  fare  — 
Say,  have  ye  seen  him  lately  pass  this  way, 
Ye  who  his  wonted  haunts  did  know  full  well  ? 
Heard  ye  his  voice  forth  from  the  thicket  swell, 
Where  midst  the  drooping  ferns  he  loved  to  stray  ? 
Caught  ye  no  glimpses  of  my  truant  there  ? 
Tell  me,  oh,  tell  me,  whither  he  hath  flown  — 
Beloved  Ion  flown,  and  left  ye  sad  and  lone, 
Whilst  I  through  wood  arid  field  his  loss  bemoan. 

II. 

Early  through  field  and  wood  each  Spring  we  sped, 
Young  Ion  leading  o'er  the  reedy  pass  ; 


ION:  A  MONODY.  421 

How  fleet  his  footsteps  and  how  sure  his  tread ! 

His  converse  deep  and  weighty  ;  —  where,  alas  ! 

Like  force  of  thought  with  subtlest  beauty  wed  ? 

The  bee  and  bird  and  flower,  the  pile  of  grass, 

The  lore  of  stars,  the  azure  sky  o'erhead, 

The  eye's  warm  glance,  the  Fates  of  love  and  dread, — 

All  mirrored  were  in  his  prismatic  glass  ; 

For  endless  Being's  myriad-minded  race 

Had  in  his  thought  their  registry  and  place,  — 

Bright  with  intelligence,  or  drugged  with  sleep, 

Hid  in  dark  cave,  aloft  on  mountain  steep, 

In  seas  immersed,  ensouled  in  starry  keep. 


in. 

JSTow  Echo  answers  lone  from  cliff  and  brake, 
"Where  we  in  springtime  sauntering  loved  to  go, 
Or  to  the  mossy  bank  beyond  the  lake,  — 
On  its  green  plushes  oft  ourselves  did  throw,  — 
There  from  the  sparkling  wave,  our  thirst  to  slake, 
Dipped  in  the  spring  that  bubbled  up  below 
Our  hands  for  cups,  and  did  with  glee  partake. 
Next  to  the  Hermit's  cell  our  way  we  make, 
Where  sprightly  talk  doth  hold  the  morning  late. 
Departed  now  —  ah,  Hylas,  too,  is  gone  ! 
Hylas,  dear  Ion's  friend  and  mine,  —  I  all  alone, 
Alone  am  left  by  unrelenting  fate,  — 
Vanished  my  loved  ones  all,  —  the  good,  the  great, 
"Why  am  I  spared  ?  why  left  disconsolate  ? 


422  THE  GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

IV. 

Slow  winds  our  Indian  stream  through  meadows  green 
By  bending  willows,  tangled  fen  and  brake, 
Smooth  field  and  farmstead  doth  its  flow  forsake  : 
'T  was  in  far  woodpaths  Ion,  too,  was  seen, 
But  oftenest  found  at  Walden's  emerald  lake 
(The  murmuring  pines  inverted  in  its  sheen) ; 
There  in  his  skiff  he  rippling  rhymes  did  make, 
Its  answering  shore  echoing  the  verse  between. 
Full-voiced  the  meaning  of  the  wizard  song, 
For  wood  and  wave  and  shore  with  kindred  will, 
Strophe,  antistrophe,  in  turn  prolong  :  — 
]STow  wave  and  shore  and  wood  are  mute  and  still, 
Ion,  melodious  bard,  hath  dropt  his  quill, 
His  harp  is  silent  and  his  voice  is  still. 

v. 

Blameless  was  Ion,  beautiful  to  see, 

With  native  genius,  with  rich  gifts  endowed, 

He  might  of  his  descent  be  nobly  proud, 

.Yet  meekly  tempered  was,  spake  modestly, 

Nor  sought  the  plaudits  of  the  noisy  crowd, 

When  duty  called  him  in  the  thick  to  be. 

His  life  flowed  calmly  clear,  not  hoarse  nor  loud ; 

He  wearied  not  of  immortality, 

Nor  like  Tithonus  begged  a  time-spun  shroud, 

But  life-long  drank  at  fountains  of  pure  truth, 

The  seer  unsated  of  eternal  youth. 


ION:  A  MONODY.  423 

'T  is  not  for  Ion's  sake  these  tears  I  shed, 
'T  is  for  the  Age  he  nursed,  his  genius  fed  — 
Ion  immortal  is ;  he  is  not  dead. 

VI. 

Did  e'en  the  Ionian  bard,  Mrconides 

(Blind  minstrel,  wandering  out  of  Asia's  night, 

The  Iliad  of  Troy's  loves  and  rivalries 

In  strains  forever  tuneful  to  recite), 

His  raptured  listeners  the  more  delight  ? 

ISTor  dropt  learned  Plato  'neath  his  olive-trees, 

More  star-bright  wisdom  in  the  world's  full  sight, 

Well  garnered  in  familiar  colloquies, 

Than  did  our  harvester  in  fields  of  light ; 

Nor  spoke  more  charmingly  young  Charmides 

Than  our  glad  rhapsodist  in  his  far  flight 

Across  the  continents,  both  new  and  old ; 

His  tale  to  studious  thousands  thus  he  told 

In  summer's  solstice  and  midwinter's  cold. 

VII. 

Shall  from  the  shades  another  Orpheus  rise 
Sweeping  with  venturous  hand  the  vocal  string ; 
Kindle  glad  raptures,  visions  of  surprise, 
And  wake  to  ecstasy  each  slumberous  thing ; 
Flash  life  and  thought  anew  in  wondering  eyes, 
As  when  our  seer  transcendent,  sweet,  and  wise, 
World-wide  his  native  melodies  did  sing, 
Flushed  with  fair  hopes  and  ancient  memories  ? 
Ah,  no  !  his  matchless  lyre  must  silent  lie. 


424  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

None  hath  the  vanished  minstrel's  wondrous  skill 
To  touch  that  instrument  with  art  and  will. 
With  him  winged  Poesy  cloth  droop  and  die, 
While  our  dull  age,  left  voiceless,  with  sad  eye 
Follows  his  flight  to  groves  of  song  on  high. 

VIII. 

Come,  then,  Mnemosyne,  and  on  me  wait, 
As  if  for  Ion's  harp  thou  gav'st  thine  own  ! 
Recall  the  memories  of  Man's  ancient  state, 
Ere  to  this  low  orb  had  his  form  dropt  down, 
Clothed  in  the  cerements  of  his  chosen  fate  ; 
Oblivious  here  of  heavenly  glories  flown, 
Lapsed  from  the  high,  the  fair,  the  blest  estate, 
Unknowing  these,  and  by  himself  unknown  :  — 
Lo  !  Ion,  unfallen  from  his  lordly  prime, 
Paused  in  his  passing  flight,  and,  giving  ear 
To  heedless  sojourners  in  weary  time, 
Sang  his  full  song  of  hope  and  lofty  cheer ; 
Aroused  them  from  dull  sleep,  from  grisly  fear, 
And  toward  the  stars  their  faces  did  uprear. 

IX. 

Why  didst  thou  haste  away,  ere  yet  the  green 
Enamelled  meadow,  the  sequestered  dell, 
The  blossoming  orchard,  leafy  grove,  were  seen 
In  the  sweet  season  thou  hadst  sung  so  well  ? 
Why  cast  this  shadow  o'er  the  vernal  scene  ? 
No  more  its  rustic  charms  of  thee  may  tell, 


ION:  A  MONODY.  425 

f 

And  so  content  us  with  their  simple  mien  :  — 
"Was  it  that  memory's  unrelinquished  spell 
(Ere  men  had  stumbled  here  amid  the  tombs) 
Eevived  for  thee  that  Spring's  perennial  blooms, 
Those  cloud-capped  alcoves  where  we  once  did  dwell  ? 
Translated  wast  thou  in  some  rapturous  dream  ? 
Our  once  familiar  faces  strange  must  seem 
Whilst  from  thine  own  celestial  smiles  did  stream  ! 

x. 

I  tread  the  marble  leading  to  his  door 

(Allowed  the  freedom  of  a  chosen  friend), 

He  greets  me  not  as  was  his  wont  before, 

The  Fates  within  frown  on  me  as  of  yore  ; 

Could  ye  not  once  your  offices  suspend  ? 

Had  Atropos  her  severing  shears  forbore, 

Or  Clotho  stooped  the  sundered  thread  to  mend ! 

Yet  why  dear  Ion's  destiny  deplore  ? 

What  more  had  envious  Time  himself  to  give  ? 

His  fame  had  reached  the  ocean's  farthest  shore. 

Why  prisoned  here  should  Ion  longer  live  ? 

The  questioning  Sphinx  declared  him  void  of  blame, 

For  wiser  answer  none  could  ever  frame  ; 

Beyond  all  time  survives  his  mighty  name. 

XI. 

Now  pillowed  near  loved  Hylas'  lowly  bed, 
Beneath  our  aged  oaks  and  sighing  pines, 
Pale  Ion  rests  awhile  his  laurelled  head ; 
(How  sweet  his  slumber  as  he  there  reclines  ! ) 


426  THE   GENIUS  OF  EMERSON. 

Why  weep  for  Ion  here  ?     He  is  not  dead, 
Nought  of  him  Personal  that  mound  confines ; 
The  hues  ethereal  of  the  morning  red 
This  clod  embraces  never,  nor  enshrines. 
Away  the  mourning  multitude  hath  sped, 
And  round  us  closes  fast  the  gathering  night ; 
As  from  the  drowsy  dell  the  sun  declines, 
Ion  hath  vanished  from  our  clouded  sight. 
But  on  the  morrow,  with  the  budding  May, 
A-field  goes  Ion,  at  first  flush  of  day, 
Across  the  pastures  on  his  dewy  way. 

COXCOED,  May,  1882. 


INDEX 


INDEX. 


[For  many  subjects,  referred  to  only  therein,  see  Emerson's  Books,  Essays, 
Poems,  Poetic  and  Prose  Quotations.] 


ABBOTT,  JACOB,  publications,  42. 
Abraham,  incomparable,  142.  (See 
Bible.) 

Adam:  inward  yoice,  140  ;  possessions, 
3ol.  (See  Bible.) 

Adams,  Samuel:  public  schools,  6  ;  Tea 
Party,  21, 

Addison,  Joseph,  poetry,  180. 

Advertiser.  Boston,  on  Alcott's  book,  49. 

JEolian  Harp,  illustration,  20. 

JEschylus :  allusion,  1S2  ;  an  ideal,  331. 
(See  Greek.) 

Africa,  human  interest,  338. 

Agassiz,  Louis  :  on  materialism,  119  ;  on 
evolution,  135  ;  companionship,  305. 

Agnosticism,  134, 162,  314.  (See  Ethics, 
Religion.) 

Albee,  John,  allusion,  211. 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson:  a  guest,  20;  club, 
22;  relation  to  Emerson,  38-67  ;  Dia 
ries,  37-39,  41-67  ;  American  Insti 
tute,  studies,  40;  Boston  record,  42  ; 
conception  of  life,  42,  43;  order  of 
spiritual  precedence,  44  ;  trip  to  Con 
cord,  44,  45  ;  mob,  46  :  religion,  47  ; 
conversations  on  the  Gospels,  43-50  ; 
on  Nature,  51,  52  ;  estimate  of  Emer 
son,  53-53;  English  experiences  with 
reformers,  58-65  ;  FruStlands,  59,  65  ; 
Wayside,  65 ;  on  Carlyle's  Cromwell, 
66,  67;  advice  from  Emerson,  143; 
Orphic  rhapsodizings,  332;  Tablets, 
3G2,  330  ;  poem  of  Ion,  420-426. 

Allston,  Washington:  pupil,  31;  an 
evening,  37  :  in  Diary,  42,  44. 

America:  town-meetings,  8,  9  ;  original 
style,  56;  peculiar  origin,  69;  Puri 
tan  colonies,  70 ;  two  Americas,  73 ; 


fewer  limitations,  78  :  parasites,  79  ; 
Independence,  80 ;  majorities,  81  ; 
quadrupedal  age,  John  and  Jonathan, 
84  ;  not  causeless,  85  ;  hill  voices,  87  ; 
the  Land,  89;  literature,  138;  right 
eousness,  143 ;  rational  religion,  235  ; 
description  of  Christ,  243;  a  new  re 
ligion,  250;  jubilees,  268;  literary 
interpreter,  313;  faith  in,  332;  part 
of  universe,  337,  338;  rulers,  410, 
411.  (See  Ntw  England,  United 
States.) 

American  Institute  of  Instruction,  40. 

Americans  :  Emerson  one,  68-91,  106, 
107 ;  born  in  other  countries,  71 ; 
early  families,  72;  typical,  88;  Emer 
son's  nationality,  310;  point  of  view, 
314,  315  ;  literature, 316, 320  ;  writers, 
317  ;  literary  independence,  318  ;  char 
acter  and  scenery,  319  ;  future  litera 
ture,  333  ;  two  distinct  ideas,  334-336. 

Anarchy,  417. 

Andrew,  John  Albion,  anecdote,  17,  18. 

Anne,  Queen,  epoch,  343. 

Anselm,  on  belief  and  knowledge,  274. 

Autislavery :  Emerson's  position,  25- 
28 ;  excitement  in  Boston,  45,  46  ; 
slavery  inward,  80;  pride,  106;  Con 
cord  tea-party,  307  ;  a  stand,  308. 

Apollo  :  word,  167  ;  how  described,  243. 

Appleton,  Nathan,  dinner,  288. 

Arabia:  Mahomet,  139;  and  America, 
315  ;  poets,  373,  3S1. 

Architecture,  different  modes,  165. 

Aristophanes,  allusion,  152.  (See  Greet.) 

Aristotle  :  Alcott's  study,  47  ;  on  love, 
200  ;  poetic  test,  201-203 ;  on  Homer, 
210  ;  on  freedom,  268. 


430 


INDEX. 


Arnold,  Matthew :  criticism,  52 ;  a 
French  answer,  95  ;  quotation,  112, 
113;  poetry  criticised,  118  ;  on  Emer 
son's  style,  130  ;  answered,  180  ;  com 
parisons,  181-184  ;  hints,  185 ;  defini 
tion  of  poetry,  201-204;  on  Gray, 
204-210  ;  Mrs.  Howe's  reply,  301 ;  lit 
erary  creation,  315. 

Art  and  Life,  317. 

Artists,  painting  their  own  portraits, 
109. 

Asia :  travellers,  140 ;  righteousness, 
143;  America  not  Asiatic,  312;  a 
corner,  332 ;  philosophic  inconsist 
ency,  362;  Plato  in,  372;  shepherd 
races,  399.  (See  India,  Oriental.) 

Atheism :  lecturer,  137  ;  lamented,  284. 
(See  God,  Religion,  etc.) 

Athens.  Greece:  fondness  of  Socrates 
for,  2  ;  Pericles,  12  ;  panorama,  151. 

Atlantic  Monthly:  papers,  22;  inter 
national,  63, 64  ;  Brahma,  373 ;  essays, 
418. 

Australia,  gold,  142. 

Azores,  illustration,  112. 


BAAL,  allusion,  153. 
Babel,  confusion,  167.   (See  Bible.') 

Bacon,  Francis :  Alcott's  study,  47  ; 
French  quotation  on  poetry,  94  ;  on 
verse,  179. 

Balzac,  Honore"  de,  his  Breton  gentle 
man,  126. 

Bancroft,  Mrs.  George,  40. 

Baptists,  their  Tritheism,  153. 

Barham.  an  English  reformer,  63. 

Bartol,  Cyrus  Augustus,  Emerson's 
religion,  109-145. 

Bees,  metaphor,  103,  104,  261. 

Beethoven,  Ludwig  von:  to  be  sur 
passed,  125 ;  gold,  142. 

Behmen  (Boehme),  Jacob  Christian : 
symbol,  238 ;  insights,  362. 

Belleisle,  Rene  de  Poyen  :  Essay,  92- 
108 ;  poem,  107,  108  ;  town,  206. 

Bellows,  Henry  Whitney,  congratula 
tions,  110. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  philosophy,  352. 

Berlin,  centre  of  Germany,  10.  (See 
Germany. ) 

Bermudas,  illustration,  112. 


iBhagavat  Gita:  translation,  179,  374; 
teaching,  370;  episode,  378.  (See 
Hindoo,  India,  Vedas.) 

Biber,  George  E.,  apostasy,  62. 

Bible:  in  school,  6;  Balaam's  ass,  18; 
Saul  prophesies,  23  ;  Alcott's  study, 
40  ;  "  voice  of  one,"  etc.,  50  ;  nations 
born  of  flesh  and  spirit,  69  ;  inspira 
tion,  111 ;  David  and  Paul,  Joseph's 
coat,  112  ;  "  Yea,  yea !  »  114 ;  He 
brew,  115;  "an  ear  to  hear,"  116; 
Paul  and  Moses  in  retirement,  117  ; 
David's  prayer,  Adam,  118 ;  Exodus, 
not  Genesis,  119  ;  amanuenses,  130 ; 
gall  and  vinegar,  133  ;  star  differing 
from  star,  135  ;  "  the  way  called  her 
esy,"  136;  "Thus  saith  the  Lord," 
146  ;  letter  and  spirit,  148  ;  collision, 
239  ;  with  covers,  245  ;  wrath  of  man, 
385.  (See  Jews,  Ileliyion,  St.  John, 
etc.) 

Bismarck,  Baron  von:  quoted,  129; 
rugged, 134. 

Blackberries,  anecdote,  137. 

Blarney  Groves,  verses,  180,  181. 

Bockshirmer,  Alcott's  study  of,  42. 

Boethius,  Alcott's  reading,  42. 

Books,  not  finalities,  242.  (See  Litera 
ture,  Poetry,  Shakspeare,etc.) 

Borgias,  the,  manuring  the  Reforma 
tion,  284. 

Boston,  Mass.:  Emerson's  birthplace, 
1,  2;  old  landmarks,  4;  prosperity, 
5  ;  public  schools,  6  ;  embargo,  7  ; 
party  spirit,  Noddle's  Island,  8  ;  a 
centre,  9 ;  alliance  with  Cambridge, 
11 ;  Second  Church,  12,  151 ;  pulpit, 
13,  152  ;  North  End  places,  14  ;  lec 
tures,  15,  16  ;  Bethel,  17  ;  War  meet 
ing,  18;  circle  of  souls,  19;  social 
gatherings,  20 ;  Emancipation  cele 
bration,  21 ;  Town  and  Country  Club, 
22;  individuality,  23;  Lyceum,  24; 
Boston  Parish,  Athenaeum,  25'  deeper 
heart,  26-28;  the  Hub,  29;  witch 
craft,  30  ;  six  lectures,  31  ;  in  poetry, 
32-35  ;  Channing's  pulpit,  37 ;  Ma 
sonic  Temple,  38,  39  ;  Institute  of  In 
struction,  40  ;  spirit  of  life,  42 ;  Gar 
rison  mob,  45,  46;  twelve  lectures, 
57;  Bay,  70;  Washington  St.,  71;- 
dozen  great  men,  79  j  Beacon  Hill,  87 ; 


INDEX. 


431 


nearness,  122 ;  First  Church,  143 ; 
Federal  St.  home,  150  ;  Everett's  lec 
tures,  151;  Chardon  St.  home,  151, 
158  ;  allusions,  15-1 ;  Philistines,  157  ; 
Milton  lecture,  175;  turning  from, 
287  ;  Radical  Club,  302 ;  Woman's 
Club,  301. 

Bradford,  George  P.,  ride  with  Alcott, 
44. 

Brahmans,  spirituality,  371,  372.  (See 
Emerson's  Poems,  Hindoos,  India, 
T'edas.) 

Bread,  brown,  illustration,  123. 

Brown,  John:  sympathy  with,  21; 
cross,  134,  135.  (See  Antislavery , 
Southern  Rebellion.) 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  his  English,  55. 

Browning,  Robert,  his  Bishop  Blou- 
gram,  127. 

Brownson,  Orestes  A.  :  reasonings,  58; 
urgency,  163. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen  :  allusion,  316  ; 
on  American  poetry,  318. 

Buckminster,  Joseph  Stevens  :  preach 
ing,  13  ;  a  hope,  317. 

Buddhism  :  mysterious  calmness,  370  ; 
spirit,  374.  (See  India,  Religion, 
etc.) 

Bulkeley,  Peter:  Emerson's  ancestor, 
147  ;  sermons,  148. 

Burke,  Edmund  :  quoted,  141 ;  nature, 
327. 

Burmah.    (See  Buddhism,  India,  etc. ) 

Burn?,  Robert,  on  the  Daisy,  29. 

Burroughs,  John,  in  The  Century,  105. 

Byron,  Lord:  verdict,  210;  nature, 
327 ;  and  Goethe,  402. 

CABOT,  ELTOT,  literary  care,  154. 
Cjesar,  allusion,  361.    (See  Julius 
Ccesar.) 

Calderon,  genius,  183. 

California  :  students,  27  ;  Golden  Gate, 
70  ;  the  Forty-niners,  79  ;  Homeric, 
88 ;  Shasta,  89  ;  Yosemite,  140 ;  gold, 
142.  (Zee  America.) 

Calvinism:  a  little,  115;  decline,  248; 
a  disease,  266.  (See  Religion,  etc.) 

Cambridge,  Eng.,  scholarship,  185. 

Cambridge,  Mass.  :  doubtful  about  Em 
erson,  288  ;  drill,  2S6.  (See  Harvard 
University.) 


Canaan,  conquest,  148.      (See  Bible, 

Jews,  etc.) 
Canada,  students,  27. 
Carlyle,  Thomas :  letters  to,  3,  9,  10 ; 
product  of  London,  9  ;  merit,  23,  24  ; 
not  appreciated,  25,  27 ;  Alcotfa 
study,  40,  41 ;  undertaking  a  maga 
zine,  41 ;  Sartor  Resartus,  42  ;  ideal 
of  Emerson,  45;  on  Emerson's  first 
Essays,  50 ;  interest  in  reforms,  63 ; 
Alcott's  antagonism,  64  :  letter,  65 ; 
Cromwell,  66;  hero-worship,  68; 
thought  and  act,  120 ;  irony,  127  ; 
rugged,  134  ;  absorption  in,  151  ;  re 
ligious  essence,  246,  247  ;  spiritual 
asphyxia,  277 ;  feigned  quotations, 
362;  stream  of  influence,  386;  rela 
tion  to  Emerson,  386-418  ;  Wilhulm 
Meister,  390-393  ;  relation  to  Goethe, 
402  ;  worship  of  sorrow,  403 ;  Corre 
spondence,  404-406 :  same  doctrine, 
406 ;  fulminations,  407  ;  labor-saving 
machinery,  408  ;  sociology,  epic  poem, 
409  ;  negative  message,  History  of  his 
Life,  410  ;  among  the  seers,  411 ;  dis 
paragement  of  America,  412,  413 ; 
value  of  Emerson,  414-416 ;  pleasanter 
words  on  American  affairs,  417. 

Cathedral,  face-wall  illustration,  367. 
(See  Architecture.) 

Century,  The,  on  Emerson,  105. 

Cerberus,  soothed,  298. 

Ceylon,  religion,  370.  (See  Asia,  In 
dia,  etc.) 

Channing,  Edward,  professorship,  11. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  the  divine  : 
eloquence,  11  :  discourses,  13  ;  pulpit, 
37  ;  interviews,  33  ;  anxiety  about  a 
new  magazine,  41,  42  :  spiritual  rank, 
44  ;  ethics,  58  ;  parallel  in  England, 
62  ;  the  breast  a  church,  114  ;  a  gift 
of  Unitarianism,  133;  Miss  Peabody's 
interest,  152 ;  influence  declining, 
248;  pulpit,  293.  (See  Religion, 
Unitarianism,  etc.) 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  the  poet: 
Ode  to~Emer?on,  216-222;  to  Emer 
son's  sop,  223,  224. 

Channing,  William  Henry,  Ode  to,  299. 

Character  :  always  current,  143  ;  build 
ing,  246  ;  nature's  highest  form,  254, 
256.  (See  Ethics,  Religion,  etc.) 


432 


INDEX. 


Chaucer,  Geoffrey :  quotation,  54 ;  criti 
cised,  203. 

Chelsea,  Eng. :  Carlyle's  residence,  64  ; 
letter,  65. 

Cheney,  Mrs.  Ednah  D.,  Emerson  and 
Boston,  1-35,  171. 

Child,  D.  L.,  and  wife,  39. 

Child,  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria:  Emerson's 
eyes,  16  ;  in  Diary,  42. 

China :  emigration,  71 ;  human  hopes, 
333;  religion,  370  ;  ethics,  372.  (See 
Asia,  .Buddhism,  etc.) 

Choate,  Rufus,  anecdote,  129. 

Christian  Examiner,  in  Diary,  42. 

Christianity:  an  Eastern  monarchy,  159  ; 
the  word  dropped,  161 ;  revelations, 
178 ;  different  Christianities,  238  ;  doc 
trine,  239 ;  aim,  246 ;  essence,  247  ; 
inner  world,  388 ;  four  phases  painted, 
390  ;  third  religion,  391.  (See  Calvin 
ism,  Ethics,  Religion,  etc.) 

Church  :  support  of  reforms,  62  ;  free 
dom,  66  ;  a  seceder  from,  114  ;  coun- 
cils,115;  not  a  finality,  116  ;  fandango, 
122, 123  ;  corrupt,  126  ;  artificial,  129  ; 
supposed  treason,  136 ;  leadership, 
152;  attendance,  172  ;  Emerson's  atti 
tude,  237-248;  founded  on  science, 
245,  246  ;  decadence,  285  ;  Dante.  339  ; 
studied,  407.  (See  Ethics,  Religion, 
Worshij),  etc.) 

Cicero,  poetry,  180. 

Cities :  man-made,  1-4 ;  aid  from  li 
brary,  5  ;  cockneyism,  9  ;  not  prisons, 
10,11;  advantages,  408.  (See  Berlin, 
Boston,  New  York,  etc.) 

Civilization:  dependent  on  morality, 
261, 276. 

Clairvoyance,  in  art,  183.  (See  Sy- 
monds.} 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  in  Diary,  42,44. 

Clarke,  Sarah,  letter,  31-33. 

Clubs,  304.     (See  Boston.) 

Coins,  illustration,  132. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  LTaylor :  republica- 
tion,  42;  Alcott's  study,  47;  defi 
nition  of  poetry,  178 ;  stream  of 
influence,  386. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  discovery,  70, 
85.  (See  America.) 

Common-sense,  basis  of  prose,  178. 
(See  Milton,  Poetry,  etc.) 


Concord,  Mass. :  Emerson  stock,  1 ; 
pines,  2 ;  town-meeting,  9 ;  stars 
shining,  11 ;  Emerson's  residence  be 
gun,  15  ;  club,  21 ;  war-meeting,  28  ; 
Emerson  day,  31;  Ode  in  1859,  32, 
33 ;  circle,  40 ;  Alcott's  first  trip, 
44-48  ;  other  visits,  48,  53,  54,  56 ; 
abiding  greatness,  64  ;  Wayside,  65  ; 
Mystic  of,  66  ;  monument,  86  ;  Wai- 
den,  89  ;  reputation  made,  90  ;  near 
ness,  122 ;  discourse,  136  ;  old  fami 
lies,  148  ;  drives, 156;  in  poetry, 227  ; 
School  of  Philosophy,  233 ;  studious 
home,  293;  study,  303;  tea-party, 
307 ;  part  of  the  universe,  337,  338 ; 
classic  trees,  366. 

Congregationalism,  Tritheism,  153. 

Conscience  :  inner  light,  247 ;  voice  of 
God,  269-272.  (See  Ethics,  etc.) 

Conservatism,  stands  on  man's  limita 
tions,  83.  (See  Reliyion,  etc.) 

Constantinople, its  appliances,  408.  (See 
Asia,  Oriental,  etc.) 

Conventionalism,  319.  (See  Church, 
Worship,  etc.) 

Conway,  Moncure  D.,  apotheosis,  150. 

Cooke,  George  AVillis  :  French  quota 
tion,  97  ;  Emerson's  View  of  Nation 
ality,  310-338.  (See  America.) 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  first  books, 
316,  318. 

Cord,  untwisted,  137. 

Corneille,  Pierre,  genius,  183. 

Cousin,  Victor,  Modern  Philosophy, 
373. 

Cromwell,  Oliver  :  Carlyle's  Life,  66,  67; 
war,  259  ;  assassinated,  416. 

Cupid,  in  poetry,  191, 196.  (See  Emer 
son's  Poems,  — Three  Loves.) 


DANA,  RICHARD  HENRY  :  in  Di 
ary,  44  ;  on  Emerson,  288. 
Dante:  love  of  Florence,  2;  hell,  126; 
verse  and  insight,  174  ;    new  verse, 
185 ;   on   love,  200 ;    poetry  defined, 
201  ;   criticism  of  life,  203 ;   creative 
skill,  328 ;  an  ideal,  331 ;  revelation, 
388  ;  great  poem,  389  ;  rank,  398,  400, 
401 ;    prophetic    sorrow,    406.     (See 
Poetry,  Swedenborg,  etc.) 


INDEX. 


433 


Darwin,  Charles,  theories,  262-264. 
(See  Evolution.} 

Davidson,  Professor  Thomas:  on  Aris 
totle,  202  ;  Jordan's  Sigfridsage,  383. 

Decalogue :  original,  248  :  echoed,  256- 
(See  Bible,  Laics,  Religion,  etc.) 

Demons,  theory,  194-196.  (See  Emer 
son's  Poems,  —  Daemonic  Love.) 

Dervishes,  illustration,  124.  (See  Emer 
son's  Poems,  —  Days.) 

Devil,  "  dear  old,"  122.  (See  Goethe, 
^fep!listopheles,  etc.) 

Dial,  The:  begun,  42;  on  Reformers, 
59-61 :  discussed,  62 ;  Orphic  Sayings, 
362;  Carlyle-s  opinion,  415. 

Dickens,  Charles,  his  Little  Marchioness, 
288. 

Diodati,  Charles,  Milton's  friend,  176. 

Dorcas,  incomparable,  142.   (See  Bible.) 

Dryden,  John,  not  a  classic,  204. 


EAST  LEXINGTON:  pulpit,  154, 
156 ;  Emerson  understood,  157. 

Eden,  the  Fall,  357.  (See  Bible,  Man, 
etc.) 

Edinburgh,  Scotland,  a  prayer,  25. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  menaces,  126.  (See 
Calvinism,  Puritanism,  etc.) 

Egypt:  vote  of  a  prophet,  81 :  architec 
ture,  165  :  traditions,  332  :  Sphinx, 
370  ;  Plato  in,  372  :  mind,  380  ;  civi 
lization,  399.  (See  Emerson's  Poems, 
—  The  Sphinx,  —  Oriental,  etc.) 

Elias,  inspiration,  242.     (See  Bible.) 

Elijah,  whirlwind,  156.     (See  Bible.) 

Eliot,  George,  quoted,  321,  322. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  her  era,  182-184, 248, 
330. 

Elliotson,  John,  meeting  Alcott,  61. 

Elsler,  Fanny,  anecdote,  306.  (See  Ful 
ler.) 

Emerson  Family,  settlement,  148.  (See 
Bulkeley,  Concord,  Haskins,  etc.) 

Emerson,  Charles  Chauncy :  Ralph 
Waldo's  brother,  39  :  talk  with  Al 
cott,  45  ;  law,  149  ;  death,  169,  170. 

Emerson,  Edward  Bliss,  brother  of  Ralph 
Waldo,  149. 

Emerson,  Edward  Waldo,  son  of  Ralph 
Waldo,  175. 

Emerson,  Ellen  Louisa  (Tucker),  Ralph 


Waldo's  first  wife:  marriage,  22; 
death, 151 

Emerson,  George  B.,  cousin  of  Ralph 
Waldo,  150. 

Emerson,  Lydia  Jackson,  second  wife  of 
Ralph  Waldo:  chat,  158,  159;  emi 
nently  Christian,  172  ;  hospitality, 
307,  308. 

Emerson,  Mary  Moody,  aunt  of  Ralph 
Waldo :  paper  on,  22  ;  a  guest,  40  ; 
reading  a  paper,  151 ;  expression, 
152. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo:  Boston  rela 
tions,  1-35 ;  birth,  1 .  fondness  for 
cities,  2;  on  New  York,  3;  childhood, 
4,  5  ;  schools,  6,  7 ;  orphaned  youth, 
8 :  cockney  spirit,  9 ;  hailing  from 
Boston,  10 ;  college,  11 ;  preaching, 
12:  settlement  and  sacrament,  13; 
sermon  notes,  14  ;  European  trip,  15 ; 
old  admirers,  portrait,  16  ;  punctual 
ity,  17  ;  friendship  for  Father  Taylor, 
17,  18;  patriotic  indignation,  18; 
flippantly  misunderstood,  19,  20, 
friendly  influences  not  to  be  spared, 
—  "The  Common  or  Emerson, ''  20; 
Music  Hall  occasions,  localities,  Free 
dom's  utterances,  21 ;  clubs,  mar 
riage,  22;  pride  in  Boston,  23;  -the 
Lyceum  power,  24;  theological  tem 
pest,  24,  25;  reading  Carlyle,  25; 
looking  below  the  surface,  26  ;  peren 
nial  youth,  27;  side  of  freedom,  28; 
homely  traits,  30 ;  Greek  and  Puritan 
blended,  30 ;  note  of  authority,  31 ; 
growth  in  favor,  32 ;  intellect  and 
sentiment,  32-35;  relations  to  Alcott, 
36-67  ;  loyalty  in  friendship,  36,  37 ; 
Alcott's  record,  37,  33;  on  Angelo, 
38 ;  Luther,  39  :  gatherings,  39,  40  ; 
educational  lecture,  40  ;  advanced 
thought,  41 ;  spiritual  rank,  44  ;  new 
idea  of  life,  45 ;  antislavery,  46  :  topics 
discussed,  47,  48 ;  defence  of  Alcott, 
49 ;  comments,  50  ;  as  a  lecturer,  51, 
52;  advice,  52,  53;  characteristics, 
53,54;  on  conscience,  54;  style,  55; 
qualities,  56;  on  politics,  57;  pres 
ent  failure,  58 ;  encouragement  about 
the  foreign  trip,  59  ;  review  of  it,  60, 
61 :  two  friends  antipathetic,  64 ; 
Wayside,  65;  Americanism,  68-91; 


28 


434 


INDEX. 


no  hero-worshipper,  68-,  catholic  ac 
ceptance  of  truth,  69;  ancestry  cleri 
cal,  Puritan,  and  American,  74 ;  adi 
pose  tissue,  75 ;  absence  of  system 
and  consistency,  76  ;  nothing  solved, 
coherence,  77;  cosmopolitan,  78;  com 
fortable  words  towards  England,  79  ; 
broad  sympathies,  80  ;  a  questioner, 
81,  82;  Providence,  83;  the  funda 
mentals  illuminated,  84  ;  foremost  in 
patriotism,  85,  86  ;  nature's  voices, 
87-89 ;  a  champion,  89  ;  making  Con 
cord's  reputation,  90 ;  an  experi 
menter,  91;  French  view,  92-108; 
as  a  poet,  93,  94 ;  not  a  philosopher, 
95  ;  a  thinker,  sage,  and  prophet,  96  ; 
attitude  towards  God,  97,  98;  sym 
bolism  of  nature,  99  ;  lyriques,  100  ; 
first  laws,  101 ;  self-confidence,  102 ; 
served  by  all  materials,  103, 104  ;  con 
ception  and  treatment,  105 ;  a  re 
former,  106 ;  honor  to  the  country, 
107 ;  Belleisle's  tribute,  107,  108 ; 
religion,  109-145 ;  a  volcano,  own 
portrait,  109 ;  Christianity  queried, 
110 ;  optimist  and  critic,  111 ;  an 
immigrant  and  interrogator,  112 ; 
New  Bedford  installation,  113;  the 
Church,  114 ;  Puritanism  and  par 
ties,  115  ;  a  bidden  guest,  church- 
going,  116  ;  next  door  to  truth,  117  ; 
a  cheerful  Adam  before  the  Fall,  118  ; 
mind  from  matter,  morality  not  the 
whole  of  religion,  119 ;  chant  and 
cant,  120;  indecency  repellent,  121; 
old  couplet  translated,  122 ;  humor 
ous  picture  of  the  Church,  123;  his 
own  forerunner,  124  ;  severity  towards 
class  and  person,  125 ;  majorities,  a 
mountain  mind,  126 ;  beat  and  mis 
sion,  127 ;  shielded  from  coarseness 
and  vanity,  128 ;  atomic  style,  129 ; 
clarion  oracle,  130  ;  literary  style,  131 ; 
philanthropy  and  trickery,  early  ser 
mons,  132 ;  war  against  injustice, 
expectance  of  God,  133  ;  gownless 
minister,  ruggedness,  134;  admira 
tion  of  onslaught,  135  ;  ecclesiastical 
prejudice  overcome,  136 ;  "  fair  crea 
ture,"  etc.,  137;  faith  in  immortal 
ity,  enduring  books,  138  ;  in  the  air, 
139;  his  own  company,  140;  night- 


flower  of  faith,  reply  when  ill,  141  ; 
in  heaven,  142;  understating,  143; 
swallow  flights,  mystic  sense,  no  one 
great  book,  144;  a  perceiver,  145;  as 
a  preacher,  146-172;  out  of  the  pul 
pit,  146  ;  ancestry,  147  ;  relations  to 
Concord  explained,  148;  brothers, 
149  ;  a  fair  pupil,  150 ;  first  trip  to 
Europe,  wife's  death,  leaving  the 
Second  Church,  151 ;  studying  under 
Channing,  152  ;  sermon  on  Mr.  Samp 
son,  153 ;  East  Lexington  preaching, 
154 ;  two  Divinity  addresses,  155 ; 
Concord  home,  156 ;  simple  people's 
appreciation,  157 ;  transcendentalism, 
denial  of  Christ,  life-purpose,  158; 
consulting  the  ladies,  159 ;  Ware  mis 
understanding,  unselfish  courtesy, 
160  ;  silence  about  Christ,  161 ;  hu 
mility  hopeful,  agnosticism,  162  ;  in 
tuition  of  God,  163 ;  reserve  and 
utterance,  164;  poetic  parables,  165, 
166;  tongue  of  fire,  167;  deepest 
secret,  168;  bereavements,  169,  170; 
apocalyptic  chants,  171;  church-going 
resumed,  172;  among  the  poets,  173- 
214  ;  feeling  the  impulse,  173  ;  a  poet 
without  verse,  174 ;  parallel,  175  ;  de 
scription  applied  to  self,  175-177 ; 
perfect  expression  denied,  178  ;  true 
standard,  179, 180  ;  resemblances,  181; 
concentrating,  182  ;  clairvoyance,  en 
vironment,  183 ;  best  poems,  185 ; 
every  line  valuable,  186  ;  homage  to 
love,  187;  friendship,  188-190;  a 
poem  analyzed,  191-197  ;  mysticism, 
197  ;  ethical  lesson,  198 ;  extraordi 
nary  language,  199;  commentaries 
on  love,  200,  201;  wild  rule,  202  ;  sus 
tained  virtue,  204 ;  comparison  with 
Gray,  205  ;  epitaphs,  206-210  ;  delight 
in  his  own  poetic  expression,  211 ; 
magic  power,  212 ;  poetic  tributes, 
215-232  ;  ethics,  233-285  ;  biography, 
233  ;  harmonizing  idealism,  234  ;  mo 
rality  the  law  of  the  universe,  235 ; 
first  and  last  religious  utterances, 
depth,  236  ;  impatient  of  church  doc 
trines,  237,  238 ;  present  deity,  238- 
245;  future  religion,  245-251;  mo 
rality  and  philosophy,  252  ;  thinking 
stones,  253;  fundamental  law,  255; 


INDEX. 


435 


subjective  idealism,  257;  will-con 
formity,  258  ;  superiority  to  Kant, 
259  ;  idea  of  right,  260  ;  utilitarian 
ism,  261,  262;  evolution,  262-2-36 
freedom  and  fate,  267,  268 ;  obedi 
ence,  269, 270 ;  conscience,  271 ;  work 
er  with  God,  272;  disaster  of  wrong 
277  ;  highest  inspirations,  280  ;  laws 
alive,  281;  talk  with  a  missionary 
282  ;  immoral  year,  284 ;  relation  to 
society, 286-309;  threescore,  287; 
centric  disturbers  of  peace,  288  ;  elo 
quent  on  foot,  239;  seraph's  armor, 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration,  290;  coral 
reefs,  291  ;  politeness,  292 ;  unwilling 
ness  to  enter  the  pulpit,  293  ;  critical 
appreciation  of  England's  aristocracy, 
293-296 ;  country  host,  296 ;  first 
volume  of  verse,  297;  child's  death, 
298;  indignation,  299,  300  ;  a  tailor's 
model,  301 ;  Radical  Club,  302 ;  in  his 
study,  303;  clubbable,  304;  on  the 
comic,  reading  The  Old  Cove,  305  ; 
stage-dancing,  anecdotes,  vulgar  facts, 
306 ;  entertaining  Mrs.  Howe,  307 ; 
nobility,  303 ;  woman  question, 
inspiriting  presence,  309;  view  of 
nationality,  310-338 ;  inheritance, 
310 ;  faith  in  the  soul,  311 ;  advance 
ment  of  his  country,  312  ;  literary 
field,  313  ;  repugnant  to  agnosticism, 
literary  career,  314 ;  two  theories  of 
literary  creation,  315,  316  ;  going  to 
Nature  direct,  317  ;  promise  of  a  new 
world,  319,  320:  pioneer,  321;  out 
growth  of  life,  326 ;  imitation  criti 
cised,  327  ;  diligent  student,  cosmo 
politan,  antagonistic  tendencies,  328  : 
a  liberator,  329  ,•  morning-glory,  330  ; 
world  -  movements  recognized,  331; 
faith  in  America,  332;  hopes,  333; 
national  qualities  in  his  mind,  335  ; 
garments  of  beauty  woven,  336  ;  broad 
and  human,  337;  localism,  338  :  phi 
losophy  of  nature,  339-354  ;  accept 
ance  of  discoveries,  339 ;  poet  of  the 
future,  340;  metaphors  from  modern 
theories,  341;  rhythmic  transitions, 
342  ;  machine  and  frosted  cake  poe 
try,  343;  evolution  in  poetry,  344:  ] 
inventory  of  nature,  345;  nobler 
wants,  346,  347;  transition  to  ideal- 


ism,  348;  central  unity,  349;  psy 
chology,  350:  ground  of  idealism,  352- 
354;  evolution, 354. 357;  individuality, 
355;  surprising  world  theory,  356; 
traditions,  358;  comments  on  Ora 
cles,  330;  doctrine  of  the  Lapse,  361, 
382;  seen  from  India,  365-371;  Ar 
cadian  walks,  366 ;  sense  of  childhood, 
367  ;  priestly  functions,  358 :  intro 
spection  in  the  West,  369 ;  earnestness 
of  life,  370  ;  manner  of  the  man,  371 ; 
Orientalism,  372-385;  words  about 
Plato  applied  to  self,  372 ;  haunted  by 
the  problem  of  evil,  373  ;  analysis  of 
Brahma,  373-378,  382;  summary  of 
the  spirit  of  Indian  mind,  379,  380 ; 
Neoplatonism,  380  ;  problem  solved, 
381 ;  foundation  of  the  universe,  law 
of  return,  384,  385;  relation  to 
Goethe  and  Emerson,  386-419;  stream 
of  influence,  336;  understanding  Me- 
phistopheles,  393-396 ;  self-culture, 
398;  influenced  by  Swedenborg,  401, 
402;  sorrow-worship,  403;  interpre 
tation  of  Goethe,  404;  Puritanism, 
405  ;  doctrine  of  the  age,  406 ;  solu 
tion  of  individualism,  407;  the  Civil 
War,  412-416 ;  valued  by  Carlyle,  414  ; 
English  Traits  preferred  to  Tennyson, 
416 ;  style  criticised.  418  ;  Alcott's 
Monody,  420. 

EMERSON'S  BOOKS  :  — 

English  Traits:  allusions,  78-80;  shun 
ning  the  shame,  121 ;  critical  ap 
preciation,  293 ;  value,  416. 

Essays,  first  volume,  50. 

First  Philosophy  in  Boston,  pro 
jected,  23. 

Nature:  allusions,  10,  78;  Alcott's 
insight,  5^,  52  ;  French  allusions, 
99,  106;  first  publication,  158,  236; 
opening  lines,  239 ;  all  things  moral, 
256;  evolution,  262-265;  quoted 
and  analyzed,  345-352;  written  in 
India,  366. 

Representative  Men,  68,  372,  378,393, 
394,  401,  418.' 

EMERSON'S  ESSAYS,  LECTURES,  SERMONS, 

SPEECHES,  etc.  :  — 
American  Scholar,  The,  312. 


436 


INDEX. 


EMERSON'S  ESSAYS,  LECTURES,  SERMONS 

SPEECHES,  etc.  :  — 
Aunt  Mary  Moody  Emerson,  22. 
Beauty,  99,  346, 347,  349.    (See  Emer 

son's  Poems.) 
Commodity,  99,  346,  349. 
Discipline,  99,  256,  348,  349. 
Divinity   School    Address,    106,  155 

156, 158,  235,  236,  244,  245. 
Ethics,  54-56. 
Eulogy  on  Parker,  247-250. 
Fate,  266,  267. 

Fortune  of  the  Republic,  312. 
Free  Religious   Association,  address, 

236. 
friendship,    37.       (See    Emerson's 

Poems.) 

Historical  Discourse,  Concord,  136. 
Idealism,  256,  257,  350-354. 
Judgment  Seat  of  Christ,  154. 
Language,  99,  349. 
Lapse,  or  Descent  of  the  Soul,  356- 

362. 

Luther,  39. 
Means  of  Inspiring  a  Taste  for  Eng 
lish  Literature,  40. 
Memory,  19. 
Method  of  Nature;  158. 
Methods  and  Philosophy  of  History, 

57,  58. 

Michael  Angelo,  33. 
Milton,  39,  175-178. 
Over-Soul,  The,  73;  among  Brah- 

mans,  376. 
Plato,  251. 

Poetry  and  Imagination,  345. 
Preacher,  The,    155,   156,  236,   245, 

246,  251. 

Progress  of  Culture,  106. 
Prospects,  355. 
Reformer,  The,  and  Iranscendental- 

ist,  408. 

Sermon  on  Mr.  Sampson,  153. 
Soul,  347,  348. 
Spirit,  353-356. 
Sumner  Outrage,  28. 
Traditions,  358. 
Unity,  349. 

Wealth,  5.     (See  Emerson's  Poems.) 
Worship,  245,  251      (See  Emerson's 

Poems.) 


EMERSON'S  POEMS  :  — 

Boston  Hymn,  21,  32-35,  300,  307. 

Brahma,    167;     compared,    373-378, 
382. 

Concord  Monument,  Hymn,  32,  86. 

Days,  186  ;  (Day's  Ration)  124. 

Dirge,  The,  149,  186,  205. 

Discontented  Poet,  The,  210. 

Each  and  All,  171,  297. 

Earth  Song,  The,  86. 

Emancipation  Hymn,  32. 

Epode,  The,  208.     (Voluntaries.) 

Forerunners,  The,  185. 

Four th-of- July    Ode,  32.       (Concord 
Hymn.) 

Friendship,  37,  188-190.    (See  Emer 
son's  Essays.) 

Hamatreya,  86,  171,  341. 

Hermione;  36,  37,  185,  187,  188. 

Humble  Bee,  The,  120,  321,  366. 

Initial,  Daemonic,  and  Celestial  Love, 
191-201.     (Three  Loves.) 

In  Memoriam,  205,  206. 

Lines  to  J.  W.,  171. 

May-Day,  341. 

Merlin,  185,  202,  211,  212,  342,  345. 
(Merlin's  Song.) 

Monadnoc,  126. 

Mountain  and  the  Squirrel,  171. 

My  Garden,  341,  345. 

Ode  to  Bacchus,  165-167,  212-214. 
Ode  to  Beauty,  165, 185.     (See  Emer 
son's  Essays.) 
Ode  to  Channing,  299. 
Ode,   The,  206,  207,   230.      (Volun 
taries.) 
Problem,  The,  2,  111,  113,  165,  271, 

297. 

Rhea,  171,  186,  190. 
Rhodora,  The,  104,  171,  341. 
Saadi,  126,  139, 186,  270. 
Sea-shore,  341,  345. 
Solution,  396,  399,  400-402,  419. 
Song  of  Nature,  418,  419. 
Sphinx,  The,  168, 185,  297. 
Spiritual  Laws,  384. 
Tact,  300. 
Terminus,  186. 
Test,  The,  143,  398,  399,  419. 
Three  Loves,  The,  185.     (Initial,  Dae 
monic,  and  Celestial.) 
Threnody,  169-171,  186,  205, 298,  299. 


INDEX. 


437 


EMERSON'S  POEMS  :  — 
Titmouse,  The,  186,  341. 
Uriel,  165, 167, 185,  381-383. 
Wealth,  363,  364.     <,See  Emerson's 

Essays.) 
Wood  Notes,  166,  167,  185,  341,  343, 

344. 
Worship,     169.      (See      Emerson's 

Essays.) 
Voluntaries  :    When  Duty  whispers, 

30,  206,  300.    (Ode  and  Epode.) 


EMERSON'S  POETRY  :  — 

(Brief  quotations  not  referred  to  in 
the  previous  section.)  Politics,  3; 
"The  inevitable  morning,''  3,  4; 
"  We  love  the  venerable  house,"  13, 
14;  "The  being  that  lam,"  28; 
patriotic,  85,86;  il  A  subtle  chain." 
100,  354  ;  French  translations,  101- 
104 ;  ears  of  stone,  105  ;  eyes  and 
light,  109 ;  vest,  110  ;  good  from 
all,  111 ;  an  owl,  112  ;  time  coined, 
113  :  star-axis,  conscious  law,  114, 
281 ;  harvest,  116  ;  beneath  the 
pines,  117  ;  neighbor's  creed,  121 ; 
joy  in  remorse,  122 ;  nine  lives,  123 ; 
mountain-measure,  129  ;  science  and 
hurt,  grief  and  balsam,  134  ;  know 
ing  as  known,  138  ;  biding  at  home, 
140;  clothed  eternity,  old  Niles, 
142  ;  loudest  requiem,  164 ;  un 
sightly  root  and  bright  flower,  184, 
185 :  love,  189,  190  ;  feeding  men 
262;  rivers  of  God,  270:  "The 
fiend  that  man  harries,"  272,  298  ; 
cheerfulness,  278 ;  permanence  ol 
excellence,  281;  "Good-by,  proud 
world,"  287,  288;  home  content 
297 ;  omnipresence,  380  ;  line  in 
nature,  382. 

EMERSON'S  PROSE  :  — 

(Quotations  on  different  subjects. 
Cities,  4 ;  wealth,  5 ;  town-meet 
ings,  9  ;  Boston,  10  ;  Everett,  12 
a  Thinker  let  loose,  13  :  the  Lyce 
um,  24;  young  men,  26,  27;  nc 
demand,  27;  Abolitionism,  28 
quiet  manners,  29;  bulletin-boards 
30,  31 ;  The  Transcendentaiist,  41 


EMERSON'S  PROSE  :  — 

defence  of  Alcott,  49 ;  advice  to 
him,  52,  53  ;  his  English  trip,  59- 
61 ;  one  Reason,  75 :  dozen  great 
men,  79 ;  angry  bigot  and  Aboli 
tionism,  81 ;  sturdy  New  Hamp 
shire  lad,  88  ;  the  Land  a  sanative 
influence,  89  ;  gentle  liberators,  90, 
91 :  experimenters,  91 ;  divine  per 
sonality,  97  :  externization  of  soul, 
98 ;  definition  of  poetry,  imagi 
nation,  99 ;  fire  from  Etna,  100  ; 
self-trust,  101 ;  working  with  God, 
101,  102  :  fate,  102  ;  promise  of  the 
future,  106 ;  converse  aside,  110, 
111  ;  original  relation  to  nature, 
112 ;  poppy  and  corn,  115,  116  ; 
forsaking  tasks,  116  ;  censure  tem 
pered  by  acquaintance,  125  :  black 
berries,  137;  egotism,  139:  wrangle 
and  wonder,  144  ;  moral  sentiment, 
156 ;  friend  of  man,  158  ;  silence 
about  Christ,  161 ;  in  the  midst  of 
truth,  163:  God's  sensibility,  169; 
death  an  absurdity,  170  :  parish  of 
young  men,  172;  on  Milton,  175- 
178  ;  poetry  defined,  180  ;  loqua 
city,  182  ;  new  verse  valuable,  185  ; 
nature  a  hieroglyphic,  186;  Shak- 
speare's  Phoenix,  200  :  Byron  mot, 
210  ;  new  teacher  looked  for,  235  ; 
foundation  of  belief,  law  of  gravita 
tion,  236,  252;  mind  not  divided, 
237  :  creeds  outgrown,  Sweden- 
borg's  failure,  and  Behmen's,  238  ; 
foregoing  generations  seeing  nature 
face  to  face,  239  ;  miracles,  239. 240 ; 
connection  of  Church  and  New 
Testament,  241 ;  traditions,  false 
theology,  242 ;  Oriental  pictures  of 
Jesus,  243:  his  character,  244;  a 
new  Church,  245  ;  founded  on  sci 
ence  and  ethical  laws,  246  ;  essence 
of  Christianity,  247,  248:  pure 
ethics,  249  ;  a  new  religion,  250 ; 
laws  alive,  divine  essence,  mere 
morality,  251 ;  power,  law  in  senti 
ment,  252  :  living  stones,  choral 
life-song,  live  universe,  253  ;  fate, 
loaded  dice,  morals  generated,  the 
side  of  right,  nature's  highest  form, 
254  :  character,  moral  force  of  grav- 


438 


INDEX. 


EMERSON'S  PROSE  :  — 

ity,  255;  all  things  moral,  noble 
doubt,  256  ;  centre  of  nature,  257  ; 
virtuous  man,  moral  defined,  258  ; 
moral  discipline,  impregnable  prin 
ciple,  wagon  and  star,  world's  open 
secret,  259 ;  bee  and  hive,  moral 
•institutions,  261  ;  greatest  good  of 
greatest  number,  low  prudence, 

262  ;    source    and    tap,    injustice, 
snake-skin,    eternal    moral   force, 

263  ;  melioration,  a  tropical  swamp, 

264  ;  evil  serving  good,  265 ;  human 
culture  unfinished,   265,   266;   or 
ganization  behind,   liberty  before, 
266,  267 ;   huckabuck  woven,  266 ; 
razors  and  suicides,  267  ;  obedience, 
will-education,   268,  269  ;   first  ex 
periences,    269  ;    the  moral  senti 
ment,  269, 270  ;  soul  of  God  in  men, 
270;   genius  and  conscience,   271, 
272;  identity  of  law,  one  Reason, 
273  ;     love,     perception,    intellect, 
morals,     273,    274  ;      poetry    and 
wickedness,  275;   crime  and  pun 
ishment  on  one  stem,  276;   health 
in  every  department,  277,  278  ;  evil 
and  good  unequal,  278;  secret  be 
lief  in  law,  Providence,  279 ;   man 
near  to  Nature,   280;    God  every 
where,  281  ;  immortality,  281,  282  ; 
other-world    questions,    282,    283; 
moral     interregnums,    regenerated 
conscience,  284;    divine  presence, 
286  ;  English  hero,  294  ;  talent  and 
manners,  296 ;  Fanny  Elsler  anec 
dote,  306  ;  manhood  all-important, 
anthem  of  history,  310  ;  new  guides 
for  America,   312  ;  higher  national 
life,  313;    help  from  within,  314; 
man  and  revolution,  315  ;   writing 
from  the  heart,  320  ;    tasting  the 
same  life,  326  ;  provincialism,  327  ; 
running  backward  in  vain,  337  ;  na 
ture  a  vast  trope,  345;  aspects  of 
the  world,   345,   346  ;     mercenary 
benefits,  346,-  threefold  vehicle  of 
thought,   symbolism,  poet-dreams, 
shallow  writers,  347  ;  Nature's  king 
doms,  moral  aspects,  348  ;  ultimate 
unity,  349 ;    absolute  existence   of 
nature,  350  ;  philosophy  of  nature, 


's  PROSE:  — 
351  ;  presuppositions  of  science, 
351,  352  ;  unity  of  religion  with 
ethics,  personality  of  God,  352; 
true  position  of  nature,  353  ;  ideal 
ism,  353,  354;  same  spirit  in  earth 
and  man,  354  ;  degeneracy,  under 
standing  nature,  356,  357  ,•  tradi 
tions  quoted,  358  ;  miracles,  ruin  in 
nature,  nature  fluid,  360  ;  the  world 
for  us,  361 ;  Hindoo  thought,  367  ; 
the  moon,  369;  Plato,  the  East, 
372  •  Krishna,  doctrine  of  appear 
ances,  379,  380  ;  Faust  and  his 
devil,  393,  394;  Goethe  criticised, 
395,  396;  Wilhelm  Meister,  396, 
398;  Goethe's  velvet  life,  Truth 
born  in  a  manger,  404.;  accumu 
lated  property,  408  ;  praise  of  Car- 
lyle's  Frederick,  411,  412  ;  rebuk 
ing  Carlyle  on  the  American  War 
question,  412,  413  ;  unamiablo 
Jonathan,  413,  414  ;  perversities 
of  style,  414  ;  Goethe's  literary 
form,  418. 

Emerson,  William,  father  of  Ralph 
Waldo,  settlement  in  Boston,  1,  148, 
149. 

Emerson,  William,  brother  of  Ralph 
Waldo  :  education,  149  ;  school, 
150. 

Enchanted  Princess,  295. 
Endicott  Family,  in  Massachusetts,  72. 

(See  New  England,  etc.) 
England  t  characteristics,  9  ;  critics, 
27  ;  traits,  29 ;  Alcott's  visit,  58-67  ; 
"doleful  daughters,"  64;  local  lim 
itations,  69  ;  full  of  Americans,  71 ; 
literature,  138 ;  poetry,  182,  184  ; 
dramatists,  204  ;  lectures,  293  ;  soci 
ety,  295;  scholarship,  manners,  296; 
literary  models,  317 ;  present  litera 
ture  full  of  doubt,  323:  traditions, 
332;  exportations  to  India,  Young, 
397;  one  with  America,  417.  (See 
Alcott,  America,  Emerson,  R.  W., 
Emerson's  Books,  —  English  Traits, 
—  Europe,  etc.) 
Episcopacy,  Tritheism,  153.  (See  Uni- 

tarianism.) 

Epistles,  in  the  original,  248.  (See  Bi 
ble,  St.  Paul,  etc.) 


INDEX. 


439 


Ethics:  Essay,  233-285;  different  from 
religion,  352;  precocious,  409.  (See 
Conscience,  Religion,  etc.) 

Europe :  origin  of  nations,  69 ;  full  of 
American  ideas,  70  ;  and  people,  71 ; 
precedents,  72  :  travellers ,  140  ;  Ever 
ett's  return,  151 ;  Emerson's,  153  ; 
description  of  Christ,  243 ;  America 
not  European,  312  ;  pretentious  soci 
ety ,  323  :  traditions,  332  :  genius,  372 ; 
civilization,  387  ;  history  in  Carlyle's 
books,  409;  rulers,  410;  feudal,  413. 
(See  America,  England,  etc.) 

Everett,  Alexander  H. ,  notice,  23. 

Everett,  Edward:  his  professorship,  11 ; 
genius,  12;  oratory,  150,  151. 

Evolution  :  deals  with  structure,  119 ; 
greeted,  135  :  rational  ground,  234  ; 
sympathy,  262-264;  in  poetry,  344; 
philosophy,  354,  355 ;  natural  selec 
tion,  357 ;  Hindoo,  368.  (See  Dar 
win,  Emerson's  Prose  Quotations, 
etc.) 

Experience,  a  disciple  of,  47. 


FAITH  :  lost  in  the  city,  3;  ground 
work,  257.     (See  God,  Religion, 

Worship,  etc.) 
Family,  freedom  in,  66. 
Fancy,  in  literature,  178. 
Fate :   loaded  dice,  254 ;    amelioration, 

263.    (See  Emerson's  Essays.) 
Felton,    Cornelius    Conway,   notice    of 

Emerson,  288. 

Fenelon,  Bishop,  influence,  248. 
Feudalism:  dead,  330;   none  in  Amer 
ica,  332.      (See  England,  Europe, 

etc.) 
Fichte,   Johann    Gottlieb:     tribute    to 

Christ,  242  ;  thought,  251 ;  on  faith, 

257. 

Fields.  James  T.,  quoted,  123. 
Firdusi,  his  poetry,  179. 
Fisher,  James,  hospitality,  20. 
Fiske,  James,  career,  86. 
Florence,  Italy:   Dante's  fondness  for, 

2  ;  local  prejudices  yielded,  10.    (See 

Cities,  Italy,  etc.) 
Follen,  Charles  :  wife,  42  ;  in  Diary,  42, 

44. 
Forces,  and  powers,  292. 


Fox,  TV*.  J.  :  dinner,  61 ;  wife,  64. 
France :  character,  9 ;  view  of  Emerson, 

92-108;    brilliant  age,   184;    heroes, 

294  ;  Revolution,  408,409. 
Francis,  Convers,  in  Diary,  42. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  Poor   Richard,  5, 

262. 

Frederick  the  Great,  10.    (See  Carlyle.) 
Freedom  :   in  all  departments,   66 ;    of 

man,  253  ;  two  great  ideas,  334. 
Free  Religion  :  switching  off,  114  :  party 

in  error,  159.     (See  Ethics,  Religion, 

etc.) 

Free  Religious  Association,  address,  236. 
Friendship :  genius  for,  36 ;  love  with 
out    wings,    1S9.      (See    Emerson's 

Poems.) 

Froebel,  Friedrich,  understood,  155. 
Frothingham,  Nathaniel  L.,  in  Diary, 

44. 
Froude,  James  Anthony  :   on  morality, 

261 ;  on  Carlyle,  410. 
Fruitlands,  Alcott's  scheme,  59,  65. 
Fuller,    Margaret  :     allusion,   11 ;    art- 
clairvoyance,    183;    in   society,  289; 

anecdote,    3U5,    306 ;    influenced   by 

Emerson.  321. 
Furness,  William  Henry  :    educational 

paper,  40  :  spiritual  rank,  44. 
Furies,  converted,  266. 


GARRISON,  WILLIAM  LLOYD: 
mobbed,  45,  46  ;  reforms,  58 ; 
speaking,  62;  church  within,  114; 
divergence,  134  ;  Concord  speech,  307. 
(See  Antislavery ,  John  Eroicn,  etc.) 

George  III.,  "  George  Guelph,1'  417. 

German:  words,  257  ;  heroes,  294;  the 
dance,  301 ;  language,  405. 

Germany:  central  city,  9,  10  ;  person 
ified,  129 ;  study  inducing  Radicalism, 
149;  tribute  to  Christ,  242;  Lessing's 
influence,  329.  (See  Goethe,  Car 
lyle,  etc.) 

Gibraltar,  illustration,  260. 

Gnosticism,  the  Lapse,  361. 

God:  heroes  his  instruments,  68  ;  first 
hand,  112;  eating  veal,  128;  river, 
131:  out  of  hiding,  133;  not  to  be 
analyzed,  145  ;  eternal  relations,  152  ; 
face  to  face,  153 ;  incarnate,  160  ; 


440 


INDEX. 


name  translated,  163 ;  beauty,  165  ; 
love  demanded,  196;  seeing  deity( 
245;  pitiable,  251;  thoughts,  272; 
speaking  to  men,  329;  personality, 
352  ;  Hindoo  view,  367-371 ;  Plato's 
one,  372 ;  serene  genius,  280.  (See 
Bible,  Brahma,  Buddhism,  Ethics 
Religion,  etc  ) 

Goethe:  quoted,  117;  man's  business 
120;  Faust  disagreeable,  121;  rever 
ence,  133;  introspection,  137;  on  in 
dividuality,  143 ;  absorption  in,  151; 
unity,  174 ;  on  poetry,  275 ;  relations 
to  Emerson,  336-419;  arevealer,  3 
world-poet,  390;  Wilhelm  Meister, 
390-393  ;  Mephistopheles,  393-3! 
analysis,  395,  396  ;  Meister  analyzed, 
396-398  ;  view  of  the  world,  398  ;  By 
ron,  402  ;  adulation,  404;  objections, 
405;  present  age,  406;  solution,  407; 
French  Revolution,  408,  409 ;  law 
giver,  418.  (See  Carlyle,  Germany, 
etc.) 

Goodwin,  H.  B.,  Concord  minister,  48. 
Gordian   Knot,   of  slavery,   134.      (See 

Antislavery,  John  Broivn,  etc.) 
Gospels,  in  the  original,  248.  (See  Bible.} 
Gould,  Jay,  typical,  86.    (See  America.} 
Graham,  Sylvester,  dietetics,  58.     (See 

lie  formers,  etc. ) 
Grand  Man,  of  Swedenborg,  410.     (See 

Man,  etc.) 
Gray,  Thomas,  rank,  quotations,  204- 

210. 
Greaves,  Mr.,  his  principles,  59,  62.    (See 

Reformers,  etc.) 

Greece:  climate,  etc. ,258;  contact  with 
the  East,  -331;  traditions,  332;  the 
Muse,  399.  (See  Pindar,  etc. ) 
Greek :  perceptions,  29,  30  ;  apogee,  88  ; 
study,  150;  architecture.,  165;  gods, 
167  ;  poetry,  179,  182 ;  clairvoyance, 
183;  anthology,  186;  chorus,  196; 
dramatists,  201  ;  description  of 
Christ.  243;  professorship,  288;  he 
roes,  294 ;  art,  315. 
Greenough,  Horatio,  anecdote,  135. 

HAFIZ:     poetry,    179;    new  verse, 
185.     (See  Persia,  etc.) 
Happiness,  not  the  aim  of  the  universe, 
383.     (See  Ethics,  Religion,  etc.) 


Harris,  William  T. :  on  evolution,  262; 
Emerson's  Philosophy  of  Nature, 
339^364;  Orientalism, '373-385;  Em 
erson's  Relations  to  Goethe  and  Car 
lyle,  386-419. 
Harte,  Bret,  reporter  of  California,  86. 

(See  Homer.) 

Harvard  University:  in  1817,  11,  12; 
Divinity  School,  19;  Address,  24,  25, 
113,  235,  236,  244;  benefaction,  27; 
prayer,  113 ;  Observatory,  131 ;  lob 
bying,  132  ;  overseer,  134  ;  last  word, 
136,  137  •,  Emerson's  graduation,  150  ; 
two  theological  Addresses,  155,  156; 
Greek  professorship,  288.  (See  Cam 
bridge,  Emerson's  Lectures,  etc. ) 
Harvard,  Mass.;  residence,!;  commu 
nity,  59. 

Harwood,  English  reformer,  61. 
Haskins    Family,    Emerson's    mother, 

149. 

Hastings,  battle  .of,  294. 
Hawthorne,  Julian,  Essay,  68-91. 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel :  fellowship,  183  ; 

nfluenced  by  Emerson,  321. 
Heaven,  not  to  be  analyzed,  145.     (See 

Happiness,  Religion,  etc.) 
Hebrew:  oracle,  130;  poetry,  179,340. 

(See  Bible,  etc.) 
Hedge,  Frederic  Henry  :  editorship,  41, 

42  ;  sermon,  44  ;  conversation,  48. 
Hegel,  Georg  Wilhelm  Friedrich,  a  defi 
nition,  163. 
Heidelberg,   the    Devil    in,  394.      (See 

Mephistopheles. ) 

Heraud,  John  A.:  Alcott's  interviews, 
59 ;  apostasy,  62  ;  evening,  63.  (See 
Reformers.} 

lermes,  quintessence,  304. 
lerodotus,  an  ideal,  331. 
lesiod:  Alcott's  study,  42  ;  poetry,  123. 

(See  Greek.  Homer,  etc.) 
ligginson,  Thomas  Wentworth,  quoted, 

106. 

lillard,   George   Stillman,  not  under 
standing  Emerson,  19. 
limmalayah,  snows,  415. 
lindoos:  hushed  devotion,  163;  medi 
tation,  365  ;  geography,  366;  kinship, 
367  ;   Vedas,  368  ;    philosophy,  369 ; 
deities,  370;    Brahmans,  371;   poets, 
373  ;  gods,  377,  378. 


INDEX. 


441 


History,  defined,  202. 

Hoar,  Elizabeth,  a  guest,  40. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  the  hub,  29. 

Holy  Ghost :  Montanist  opinion,  114  ; 
conflict  with  world-spirit,  131 ;  not 
exhausted,  242.  (See  God,  Jesus, 
Religion,  etc.) 

Holy  Land,  of  the  soul,  140. 

Homer :  comparison,  24 ;  excluded,  123  ; 
hell,  125 ;  genius,  143,  144  ;  quoted, 
173  ;  verse,  174  ;  allusions,  181 :  crit 
icism  of  life,  203  ;  words,  210  ;  one, 
243  ;  environment,  258  ;  quintessence, 
804 ;  springs  of  power,  326  :  creative 
skill,  328 ;  assimilated,  329 ;  Troy 
taken,  333 ;  revelation,  387 ;  rank, 
398,  401.  (See  Greek-,  Poetry,  etc  ) 

Horace,  quoted,  306. 

Howe,  Julia  Ward,  Emerson  and  So 
ciety,  286-309. 

Hugo,  Victor :  motto  quoted,  92 ;  God 
bankrupt,  118, 119  ;  unity,  174. 

Humanity,  Seer  of,  2.  (See  Great 
Man,  Immortality,  Jesus,  etc.) 

Hume,  Joseph,  heard,  62. 

Huntington, Frederick  D.,on  character, 
246. 

IMAGINATION  :  makes  the  universe 
one  vast  metaphor,  99 ;  basis  of 
poetry,  178. 

Immortality  :  Alcott's  study,  43  ;  in 
poetry,  118 ;  Emerson's  assurance, 
138  ;  Whence  ?  234  ;  questions,  283  ; 
in  poem,  426.  (See  God,  Heaven, 
Jesus,  Religion,  etc.) 

Independents  :  extremists,  137 ;  Emer 
son's  ancestry,  147,  148. 

India  :  Emerson  as  seen  from,  365-371  ; 
Brahma,  373  ;  moral  indifference,  375- 
378 ;  two  orders  of  devotees,  370. 
(See  Emerson's  Poems,  Hindoos, 
Vedas,  etc.) 

Indians,  church  among,  147,  148. 

Individualism,  doctrine  of,  407. 

Individuality  :  two  great  ideas,  334-336  ; 
begins,  355. 

Innocence,  silver  seat,  384.  385. 

Inspiration  :  larger,  242  ;  channels,  327. 
(See  Bible,  Holy  Ghost,  etc.) 

Instinct,  spiritual,  359. 

Ion,  Alcotfs  poem,  420-426. 


Ireland,  emigration,  72. 

Irving,  Washington,  freshness,  318. 

Isaiah,  prophecies,  410.  (See  Bible, 
etc.) 

Italy  :  its  centre,  10 ;  local  limitations, 
69  ;  poetry,  179 ;  art-clairvoyance, 
183  ;  heroes,  294 ;  query,  315  ;  inspira 
tion,  330  ;  ideal  men,  331 ;  traditions, 
332  ;  the  Muse,  399.  (See  Florence, 
Michael  Angelo,  etc.) 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  anecdote,  135. 
James,  Henry,  quoted,  134. 

James.  Henry,  Jr. :  Life  of  Hawthorne, 
321 ;  polish,  323. 

James  I.,  age,  183. 

Japan,  religion,  370.  (See  Buddhism, 
Orient,  etc.) 

Jehovah,  name  sacred,  163.  (See  Brah 
ma,  God,  etc.) 

Jena,  Fichte  at,  251. 

Jeremiah,  prophecies,  410.    (See  Bible.) 

Jerusalem,  robbed,  142.     (See  Bible.) 

Jesus  :  retirement  and  love  of  cities,  2 ; 
Alcotfs  study,  42, 46-48  ;  person,  111 ; 
pre-existence,  113  ;  not  a  finality,  116 ; 
wilderness,  117, 139;  hell,  125  ;  prayer 
through,  128  ;  Gethsemane,  134,  135  ; 
incomparable,  142 ;  judgment-seat, 
154  ;  realizing  divinity,  155,  156  ;  de 
nial,  enemy  of  man,  158  ;  puppy  crit 
icism,  159  :  preached  by  silence,  161; 
bloodless  victory,  163  ;  parables,  164  ; 
eclipsed,  167;  secret,  168;  why  bet 
ter,  240 ;  Church  doctrine,  242  ;  ex 
cellence,  243,  244;  a  prophet,  244, 
245;  environment,  258;  grace  and 
truth.  260  :  answers  to  queries,  283  ; 
history,  360;  aspects,  392.  (See 
Christianity,  Ethics,  God,  Relig 
ion,  etc.) 

Jews  :  their  cultus,  238  ;  teachers,  410. 
(See  Bible,  Htbreic,  Worship,  etc.) 

Johnson,  Samuel,  on  rascality,  278. 

Jonathan,  fictitious  personage,  413. 
(See  America,  Xew  England,  etc.) 

Jonson,  Ben,  poetry,  180. 

Jordan's  Sigfridsage,  quoted,  383. 

Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy,  es 
says,  418. 

Jubbulpoor,  hills,  366.  (See  India, 
etc.) 


442 


INDEX. 


Julius  Caesar,  genius,  144.  (See  Ccesar.) 
Jupiter,  Dyaus  Pitar,  367.     (See   God, 

Jehovah,  etc.) 
Justice  ;    comparison,   295  ;    inelegant, 


KANSAS,  raids,  124. 
Kant,  Immanuel :   constructive 

genius,  95;   ethics,  234;   his  Kritik, 

258  ;   inferiority,   259  ;    theory,  260  ; 

on  freedom,  268;  quintessence,  304. 
Kearney,  Denis,  and   the  Chinese,  71. 

(See  California.) 
Kennebec  River,  sojourn,  150. 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  last  work,  367, 

368.     (See  India,  etc.) 
Khayam,    Omar,    quoted,     117.       (See 

Persia  ) 

Kinney,  Mrs.  E.  C,,  Sonnets  on  Emer 
son,  231,  232. 
Kirkland,  John  Thornton,  presidency, 

11. 
Knox,   John,    Carlyle's    allusion,   405. 

(See  Calvinism,  Puritanism,  etc.) 
Kossuth,  Louis,  shut  out,  26. 
Krishna,    deity,   370,    378,  379.      (See 

Hindoos,  Jehovah,  etc.) 

LALOR,  MR. ,  Alcott's  interview,  61. 
Landseer,  Thomas,  anecdote,  306. 

Lane,  Charles,  socialism,  59,  62. 

Latin  Poetry,  179.     (See  Greek,  etc.) 

Laud,  Archbishop,  a  persecutor,  147. 
(See  Emerson  family.) 

Laws,  alive,  251,  281.  (See  Ethics,  etc.) 

Lazarus,  Emma,  sonnet,  215. 

Leibnitz,  Gottfried  Wilhelm,  quoted, 
378. 

Lens,  illustration,  137. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim,  influence, 
329. 

Liberty,  before  us,  264,  267. 

Life,  theory  of,  38,  39. 

Lincoln,  Abraham:  proclamation,  21; 
lily,  133.  (See  America,  etc.) 

Literature,  methods  of  creation  in 
America,  315-333  passim.  (See  Mil 
ton,  etc.) 

London,  Eng.  :  effect,  4;  everywhere 
known,  9  ;  advantages,  408. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  com 
panionship,  305. 


Lord's  Supper:  refusal  to  administer, 
13,  110 ;  table  and  sideboard,  127  ; 
Parker's  view,  128  ;  sermon,  152  ;  at 
titude,  172;  scene,  392. 

Louis  XIV.,  era,  184. 

Love,  compared  with  friendship,  189. 
(See  Emerson's  Poems.) 

Lovelace,  sympathy  with,  80. 

Lowell  Family,  in  the  War,  26,  27. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  pathos,  27. 

Lucretius :  higher  meaning,  193 ;  po 
etry  denned,  201. 

Luther,  Martin  :  principles,  66  ;  prayer, 
118  ;  private  judgment,  147. 

Lyceum  :  Emerson's  place,  24  ;  pulpit, 
157. 

Lyman,  Theodore,  gift  to  Harvard,  151. 


MAB,  QUEEN,  in  poetry,  192. 
Macdonald,    George,    Maurice's 
apostle,  162. 

Madonna,  shrine,  247.  (See  Roman 
Catholicism.) 

Mahomet,  in  the  desert,  139. 

Man :  as  a  study,  43  ;  the  universal,  45 ; 
eternal  relations,  152.  (See  Ethics, 
Immortality,  Great  Man,  etc.) 

Marcus  Antoninus,  ethical  sculpture, 
274. 

Marcus  Aurelius  :  comparison,  181 ;  on 
morals,  258. 

Marietta,  Ohio,  letter,  31-33. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  genius,  184. 

Marston,  a  reformer,  62,  63.  (See  Al- 
cott.) 

Mason,  Jeremiah,  understanding  Emer 
son,  19. 

Massachusetts,  literary  soil,  184.  (See 
New  England.) 

Materialism :  science,  134 ;  Western, 
367. 

Maurice,  Frederick  Dennison,  on  Chris 
tianity,  161,  162. 

May,  Samuel  Joseph:  allusion,  39;  in 
Diary,  42. 

Mead,  Edwin  D.,  Emerson's  Ethics,  233- 
285. 

Mecca,  Concord  not  one,  338. 

Medicis  Family,  284.    (See  Italy.) 

Memory,  in  composition,  178. 

Memphis, appliances, 408.   (See  Egypt.) 


INDEX. 


443 


Mephistopheles,  meaning,  393-395.  (See 
Goethe,  etc.) 

Mercutio,  allusions,  191-193,  200.  (See 
Emerson's  Poems,  —  Three  Loves.) 

Mermaid,  illustrative  fable,  71,  72. 

Messiah,  infancy  a  perpetual,  155,  359. 
(See  Jesus,  etc.) 

Methodism,  its  gift,  133. 

Michael  Angelo :  allusion,  144 ;  in 
spired,  271.  (See  Emerson's  Lec 
tures.) 

Microcosm,  approached,  406. 

Middle  Ages  :  architecture  in  the,  165  ; 
Goethe's  study,  406. 

Milan,  and  Rome,  10. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  essay,  260. 

Milton,  John  :  Satan  routed,  125  ;  mag 
nificent  fable,  163  ;  verse  and  insight, 
173-178 :  ploughman,  185 ;  poetic 
test,  201;  Paradise  Lost,  333  ;  Uriel, 
381. 

Miracles :  disbelieved,  239-241  ;  an 
cient,  360.  (See  Ethics,  Mature, 
Religion,  etc.) 

Miriam, incomparable,  142.   (See Bible.) 

Mnemosyne,  invoked, 424. 

Moliere,  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin,  liter 
ary  rank, 93. 

Moloch,  fire,  148. 

Montaigne,    Michel  Eyquem  :    quoted, 

•  103, 104  ;  allusion,  115  ;  on  style,  201, 
202. 

Montanists,  on  the  Holy  Spirit,  114. 

Montanus,  Roman,  115. 

Morality:  233-285  passim;  defined, 
235.  (See  Ethics,  Religion,  etc.) 

Morgan,  J.  M.,  design,  62. 

Morley,  on  Nature,  52. 

Moses :  incomparable,  142  :  inspiration, 
242  ;  law,  260.  (See  Bible.} 

Mozoomdar.  Protap  Chunder,  Emerson 
seen  from  India,  365-371. 

Muses,  the  :  converted,  266  ;  fled,  339  : 
answer,  399 ;  favorites, 400.  (See Em 
erson's  Poems,  — Test  and  Solution.) 


"VfAPLES,  Italy,  yields  to  Rome,  10. 
-L  i      Napoleon  Bonaparte,  genius,  144. 
Narbudda  River.  366.     (See  India.) 
Nationality,  Emerson's  view,  310-338. 
(See  America,  etc.) 


Nature :  a  touch  in  old  age.  1 ;  poet  of 
outward,  2 ;  town  under  the  care  of, 
3  ;  in  Boston,  4 ;  French  allusions, 
92-108  passim;  nurse,  138;  hermi 
tage,  140;  eternal  relations,  152;  a 
hieroglyphic,  186;  ally  of  religion, 
256-259 ;  independence,  317  ;  new 
world  of,  319 ;  man?s  place,  320  :  trust 
in,  333  ;  Emerson's  philosophy,  339- 
364 ;  disenchanted,  339  ;  Greek  view, 
340  :  temples,  368  ;  Emerson's  rela 
tion  to,  386  ;  cathedral,  367.  (See 
Emerson's  Books.) 

Neander,  Johann  August  Wilhelm,  li 
brary,  306. 

Nebuchadnezzar :  allusion,  181 ;  de 
throned,  359.  (See  Bible.) 

Neoplatonism  :  the  Lapse,  361 ;  inverse, 
380. 

Nepaul,  Buddhism,  370.  (See  India, 
etc.) 

Neptune,  statue,  ISO.     (See  Blarney.) 

New  Bedford,  Mass. :  pulpit,  12  ;  instal 
lation,  113. 

New  England :  its  centre,  10  ;  Everett 
a  classic,  12 ;  youth,  25 ;  best  voice, 
28  ;  Van  Buren's  presidency,  58  ;  so 
cial  reform,  61 ;  Puritans,  70  ;  influ 
ence  in  Europe,  71 ;  Mayflower,  72  ; 
farmers,  86;  lads,  88  ;  literature,  184. 
(See  America,  etc.) 

New  England  Woman's  Club,  formed, 
22. 

New  Testament,  praise,  241.  (See  Bible. ) 

New  World,  discovered,  330. 

New  York  :  letter  about,  3,  4  ;  Castle 
Garden,  70 ;  Broadway,  71  ;  dozen 
great  men,  79;  Fifth  Ave.,  89;  lec 
tures,  288;  advantages,  408. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  running  hand,  129, 
130. 

Newspapers,  not  appreciative,  16. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  his  laws,  266 

Nicodemus,  180.     (See  Blarney.) 

Nirvana,  Hindoo,  370,  371. 

Noah,  his  sons'  reverence,  121.  (See 
Bible.) 

North   American   Review:    on  Milton, 

39, 175  ;  in  Diary,  42. 
I  North  Pole,  travellers,  140,  145. 

Norton,  Andrews,  hearing  a  sermon, 
123, 124. 


444 


INDEX. 


OBSERVER,  THE,  in  Diary,  42. 
Occident :  mysticism,  362  ;  swing 
ing  towards,  372.     (See  Orient.) 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  heard,  62. 

Oldham,  his  apostasy, 63.   (See  Alcott.) 

Old  Manse,  The,  window,  148.  (See 
Concord. ) 

Olrnsted,  Frederick  Law,  religion,  116. 

Olympus,  waiting  in,  352. 

Orient:  spirit  in  Emerson,!  97  ;  peculiar 
religion,  238;  Christ,  243;  thought, 
302;  Lapse,  361,  362;  swinging  to 
wards  the,  372  ;  Emerson's  Oriental 
ism,  372-385;  precocious  ethics,  409. 
(See  Brahma,  India,  Occident, etc.) 

Orpheus,  in  poem,  423. 

Orphic  Poet:  quoted,  359,  360;  style, 
362. 

Osgood,  J.  R.,  &  Co.,  404. 

Osiris,  how  described,  243. 

Ovid,  advice,  189. 

Owen,  Robert:  denied,  62;  Alcott's  in 
terview,  63 ;  surgical  smile,  135. 

Oxford,  Eng. :  a  prayer,  25 ;  crushing 
a  flower,  185;  drill,  296.  (See  Cam 
bridge.) 

PAGANISM:  oracle,  130;  philoso 
phy,  243. 

Paris,  advantages,  408.     (See  France.) 

Parker,  Theodore :  thanks,  congrega 
tion,  21 ;  Lord's  Supper,  128  ;  friends 
in  college,  132;  sword,  134;  on  con 
science,  269;  hammer,  291;  pulpit, 
293. 

Parkman,  Francis,  woman's  suffrage, 
309. 

Parliaments  of  the  Times,  22. 

Partitions,  illustration,  141. 

Pascal,  Blaise:   a  new,  248  ;  piety,  274. 

Peabody,  Elizabeth  Palmer:-  enthusi 
asm,  11;  reminiscences,  14;  hospi 
tality,  20  ;  on  a  lecture,  38  ;  in  Diary, 
42  ;  on  Emerson's  preaching,  146- 
172,  on  Bacchus,  212. 

Peabody,  Ephraim:  in  Diary,  42,  44; 
sermon,  123,  124. 

Peabody,  Mary  (Mrs.  Mann),  40. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  letter,  63. 

Pentateuch,  translation,  163.  (See  Bi 
ble,  Moses,  etc.) 

PentecostalMuse,167.  (See Holy  Ghost.) 


Pericles,  eloquence,  12. 

Persian  :  Muse,  167  ;  poetry,  179,  182 ; 
ethics,  372,  375  ;  moral  indifference, 
375;  Seyd,  381.  (See  Orient.) 

Pestalozzi :  a  Connecticut,  37 ;  a  dis 
ciple,  59. 

Petrarch,  love-advice,  189  ;  ideal,  331. 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration,  290.  (See 
Harvard  University.) 

Philistines,  in  Boston,  157. 

Phillips,  Wendell :  speaking,  62  ;  diver 
gence,  134;  artillery,  291 ;  tea-party, 
307. 

Phocion,  environment,  258. 

Pindar:  allusion,  182  ;  new  Terse,  185; 
definition  of  poetry,  201  ;  environ 
ment,  258. 

Pine-tree,  oracle,  343,  344. 

Plato :  Alcott's  study,  40,  42,  47 ;  con 
structive  ability,  95;  pre-existence, 
113 ;  picture-book,  117  ;  exercise  of 
intellect,  121,  122;  Republic,  123; 
the  ideal,  125 ;  childhood,  133  ;  hit 
ting  the  apple,  145  ;  understood,  153; 
allusions,  182  ;  in  Emerson,  197  ;  Pla 
tonic  poet,  200  ;  definition  of  poetry, 
201;  on  freedom,  268;  piety,  274; 
quintessence,  304 ;  how  produced,  331 ; 
Phaedrus,  362 ;  in  Asia,  372;  contem 
plation  in  religion,  378  ;  poetic  rank, 
402;  allusion  in  poem,  423. 

Plotinus,  Fourth  Ennead,  356,  362, 

Plutarch:  statue,  180;  comparison, 
131, 132. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  melodies,  198, 

Poetry  :  French  view,  92-105  ;  basis, 
178;  defined,  201-204,  rhythm,  342, 
343;  characteristics,  386,  387. 

Poets,  Emerson  among  the,  173-214. 
(See  Emerson'' 's  'Poems,  Shak- 
speare,  etc.) 

Politics :  universal  theme,  8  ;  degraded, 
25 ;  parties  in  1884,  71. 

Pons,  Capdueil,  couplet,  275. 

Pope,  Alexander,  criticised,  204. 

Power,  unity,  252. 

Pray  ere  approved  at  Harvard,  134 ; 
allusion,  360 

Preaching,  Essay  on  Emerson's,  146-172. 

Princeton  Review,  on  evolution,  262. 

Prometheus,  enduring,  394. 

Prophets;   Jesus  one,  244,  245;  dream 


INDEX. 


445 


of  brotherhood,  313.  (See  Bible,  In 
spiration,  etc.) 

Prose,  basis,  178.  (See  Emerson's 
Prose.) 

Protestantism  :  in  1846,  66 ;  service  a 
reminder,  128. 

Provencal  ministry,  315. 

Psychology,  idealistic  view.  350. 

Punratory  :  in  the  Orient,  383  ;  Danteis, 
389. 

Puritanism  :  blending,  30  ;  in  New  Eng 
land,  70  ;  ancestry,  74,  115,  175,  404  ; 
not  to  be  confounded  with  Indepe'n- 
dence,  147,  148  ;  Milton  amidst,  176  ; 
conscience,  302  ;  Carlyle's,  405.  (See 
Calvinism,  etc.) 

Putnam,  Dr.,  conversation,  366. 

Pyramids,  wheat-grains,  116. 

QUAKERISM  :   its  gift,  1S3 ;  Lord's 
Supper..  172. 

Quincy,  Josiah :  on  town-meetings,  8  ; 
classmate,  11. 

T>  ABBJ,  title,  152. 

JA/    Radical    Club,    302,    304.      (See 

free  Religion,  etc.) 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  genius,  184. 
Raphael :  Marriage  of  the  Virgin,  132  ; 

ideal,  331. 

Reason,  basis  of  poetry,  178. 
Reformation,  the  manure  of  the,  284. 
Reformers:   in  England,  59-65;  En*er- 

son  as  one,  106. 
Reforms  :  long  lists,  60-62  :  relying  on 

infinitude,  83.    (See  Alcott,  etc.) 
Religion  :  in  old  age,  1 ;  Alcott's  Diary, 

43;    French  view,  94,  95;    one  that 

degrades  not,  122;  architecture,  127 ; 

Emerson's,  109-145 ;  ethical  side,  233- 

285;  defined,  255;  ally  of  nature,  256 ; 

different  from  ethics,  352;  heathen, 

391.     (See  God,  Jesus,  etc.) 
Renaissance  :     art-clairvoyance,    183 j 

pathfinders,  329. 

Revolutionary  War,  chaplaincy,  148. 
Richter,  Jean  Paul  Friedrich,  on  faith, 

141. 

Ripley,  George,  in  Diary,  42,  43. 
Rivers,  historic,  303. 
Roman  Catholicism,  mass  a  reminder, 

128. 


Rome  :   architecture,   165  ;    traditions, 

332 ;  achievements,  408. 
Rubinstein,  Anton  :  secret  of  worship, 

109;  advice,  124,  125;  piano  recital, 

143;  quoted,  145. 
Russia,  her  exiles,  71. 


SAADI  :  a  line,  139  ;  poetry,  179. 
(See  Emerson's  Poems.) 

Sabbath,  observance  compulsory,  147. 

Sadduceeism,  desolating,  128. 

Saint  Augustine,  triumphs,  115. 

Sainte-Beuve,  Charles  Augustin,  quoted, 
105. 

Saint  John  :  gospel,  151  ;  reporting 
Jesus,  161.  (See  Bible.) 

Saint  Paul:  his  Arabia,  139;  incom 
parable,  142  ;  inspiration,  242. 

Salem  witchcraft,  30. 

Salter,  his  philosophy,  250. 

Sampson,  the  ideal  merchant,  153,  154. 

Sanborn,  Frank  B.  :  Essays,  3*3-67, 
173-214;  quoted,  118;  invitation  to 
Miss  Peabody,  146;  Ode  of  1882, 
224-231. 

Sand,  George,  her  Consuelo,  397. 

Sanscrit  poetry,  179.  (See  India, 
Vedas,  etc.) 

Saturday  Club,  22.     (See  Boston.) 

Saturday  Morning  Club,  305. 

Saturn,  devouring,  134. 

Saxon,  in  Emerson's  diction,  55. 

Scepticism,  of  this  age,  340. 

Schiller:  on  religion,  116  ;  silence,  414. 

School-ship,  boys,  16,  17. 

Science,  an  idol,  117. 

Scientists,  weary,  119. 

Scott,  David,  portrait  of  Emerson,  16. 

Scribes,  authority,  186. 

Septuagint,  translation,  163.  (See Bible.) 

Seyd,  Sultan,  poet,  381. 

Shakspeare:  "  green  fields,"  1  ;  bold 
ness,  51 ;  his  English,  55  ;  his  name 
everywhere,  93  ;  Sonnets,  99,  185,  200, 
351 ;  Seven  Ages,  124  ;  genius,  144  j 
verse  and  insight,  174,  175,  178 ; 
knowledge,  182  ;  imperishable  genius, 
183,  184;  love-advice,  189;  Romeo, 
love,  Phoenix  and  Turtle,  200 ;  test  of 
poetry,  201;  criticism  of  life,  203; 
era,  204  ;  one,  243  ;  springs  of  power, 


446 


INDEX. 


326 ;  lyrics  of  nature,  341 ;  quoted 
342  ;  human  institutions,  388  ;  Ham 
let,  396  ;  wit,  rank,  400. 

Shaw,  Colonel,  Ode  to,  206. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip:  his  English,  55; 
blossoming,  184. 

Sigfridsage,  383. 

Silence,  anecdote,  160-162. 

Sinai,  the  Kantian,  260. 

Smith,  Sydney :  heard,  62 ;  anecdote, 
306. 

Society,  Emerson's  relations,  286-309. 

Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Know 
ledge,  38. 

Society  for  Ethical  Culture,  250. 

Socrates  :  love  of  Athens,  2  ;  compari 
son,  22,  24;  a  new,  248;  surround 
ings,  258. 

Solitude,  benefits,  30,  31. 

Sophocles,  creations,  183. 

Soul,  origin  and  destiny,  234.  (See 
Ethics,  Religion,  etc.) 

Southern  Rebellion  :  Emerson  indig 
nant,  18-20,  26-28,  73,  74  ;  Har 
per's  Ferry,  134 ;  Carlyle  letters,  412, 
413.  (See  Antislavery,  Emerson's 
Poetry,  etc.) 

Sparks,  Jared,  historic  mission,  59. 

Spencer,  Herbert :  ethics,  234  ;  theory, 
260;  Data  of  Ethics,  263. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  blossoming,  184. 

Sphinx:  its  calmness,  370;  riddle,  380  ; 
in  poem, 425.  (See  Emerson' s  Poems.) 

Spinoza,  constructive  ability,  95. 

Spiritual  Intelligence,  life  of  the  world, 
333.  (See  God,  Religion,  etc.) 

Stoics,  pain  no  evil,  118. 

Storm,  privacy  of,  140. 

Sturge,  Joseph,  once  heard,  62.  (See 
Alcott.) 

Sumner,  Charles,  outrage,  28 .  (See  Anti- 
slavery,  Southern  Rebellion,  etc.) 

Sun,  Emerson  his  own,  139. 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel :  keenness,  144  ; 
Christian  symbol,  238  ;  waning  influ 
ence,  248  ;  on  piety,  274;  poetic  rank, 
400-402  ;  sect,  410. 

Swift,  Jonathan  :  suggests  Sartor  Resar- 
tus,  127;  poetry ,  180;  comparison, 
181 ;  Liliput,  303. 

Symonds,  an  English  critic,  182-184. 
(See  Clairvoyance.) 


Syria,  ancient,  148. 

System,  lacking  in  Emerson,  75-77. 


mALLEYRAND,  his  mot,  301. 
JL  Taylor,  Edward:  Bethel,  14;  po 
etic  insight,  17  ;  bon  mot,  18  ;  in  Di 
ary,  42  ;  tacking,  111  ;  a  gift  from 
Methodism,  133  ;  estimate  of  Emer 
son,  136. 

Teleology,  263,  264. 

Tennyson,  Alfred :  poetry,  323 ;  Idyls, 
416. 

Thayer,  James  B.,  quoted,  156. 

Thibet.    (See  Buddhism.) 

Thompson,  George;  antislavery  elo 
quence,  45,  46;  Alcott's  interview, 
62. 

Thomson,  J.  Cockburn,  translation, 
374. 

Thoreau,  Henry  D. :  definition  of  a 
philosopher,  96;  making  a  pencil, 
137  ;  a  wise  word,  282  ;  influenced  by 
Emerson,  321. 

Tiberius,  a  gymnasium,  284. 

Ticknor,  George,  professorship,  11. 

Titus,  Emperor,  stolen  candlestick,  142. 

Traditions,  not  authoritative,  242. 

Tramps,  illustration,  139. 

Transcendentalism:  disciples,  46;  spring 
time,  49 ;  main  track,  115 ;  its  gift, 
133 ;  hell  for  its  disciples,  157  ;  in  Bos 
ton,  158;  age,  184;  reformers,  407; 
altitudes,  415. 

Transcendentalist,  The,  new,  41.  (See 
Alcott.) 

Truth:  in  the  midst  of,  163, 164;  infi 
nite,  165  ;  at  its  source,  368. 

Turin,  Italy,  precedence  of  Rome,  10. 

Tyndall,  John,  on  Emerson,  339. 


TTNITARIANISM :  ministry,  14 ; 
\J  American  Association,  62 ;  pale 
negations,  115 ;  great  gift,  133 ;  pro 
test,  149;  leaders,  153;  physical,  266. 
(See  Puritanism,  Religion,  etc.) 

United  States,  Carlyle  correspondence, 
416,  417.  (See  America.) 

Upham,  T.  C.,  Alcott's  reading,  42. 

Utilitarianism,  discussed,  261,  262. 


INDEX. 


447 


YAN  BUREX,  MARTIN,  presidency, 
58.     (See  JVew  Enyland.) 

Van  Helmont,  on  piety,  274. 

Yaughan,  Henry,  bird  metaphor,  118. 

Vedas,  Hindoo,  368,  370, 376,  377.     (See 
Bhagavat  Gita,  India,  etc. ) 

Venus,  in  poetry,  191, 192.     (See  Emer 
son's  Poems.) 

Vienna,  Austria:   life  in,  394;  advan-  j 
tages,  408. 

Villon,  French  scamp-poet,  204. 

Violin,  illustration,  124. 

Vishnu,  deity,  379.     (See  Hindoos,  etc. )  j 

Voltaire :  poetry,  180  j  comparison,  181. 

Vyasa,  philosophy,  352. 


TTTAAGEX,  GUSTAV  FRIEDRICH, 

TT       art-mission,  59. 
Wachusett  Mountain,  337. 
Walden  Pond,  422.    (See  Concord,  and 

Thoreau.) 
Walker,  James:  in  Diary,  42,  44;  dull  j 

sermon,  123, 

Ward's  English  Poets,  introduction,  203. 
Ware,  Henry,  Jr.:   colleague,   12  j    in 

Diary,  42  ;  sermon  controversy,  160. 
War  of  1812,  disastrous  effect,  7. 
Washington,     George:     prayers,     109; 

rank,  133  ;  allusion,  417. 
Watches,  illustration.  131. 
Waterston,  Robert  Cassie,  in  Diary,  42 
Vatt,  James,  illustration  of  politics,  81. 
Wayside,   Concord,   Alcott's  residence, 

65. 

Webster,  Daniel:  blood,  111 :  logic,  135, 
Webster,  Noah,  appeal,  317. 
Wesley,  John,  waning  influence,  248. 

(See  Methodism.") 


White  Hills,  travellers,  140. 

Whitman,  Walt-,  estimate  of  him,  121, 
135;  rugged  verse,  322. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  the  gift  of 
Quakerism,  133. 

Williams,  Sir  William,  epitaph,  206. 
(See  Gray.) 

William  the  Conqueror,  followers,  294. 
(See  Emerson's  Hooks,  —  English 
Traits.) 

Winthrop  Family,  in  Xew  England,  72. 

Wit,  in  authorship,  178. 

Woman:  clubs,  22;  suffrage  conven 
tion,  307,  309. 

Woman's  Club,  304. 

Words,  woven,  130.  (See  Emerson's 
Essays,  — Language.) 

Wordsworth,  William:  French  view, 
93;  insight  into  nature,  104;  light, 
110  ;  prayer,  118  ;  blessings,  122  ;  in 
sight  and  verse,  174  ;  poetry,  323,  324 ; 
stream  of  influence,  386. 

Worship:  Bartol's  paper,  109-145 pas 
sim  ;  Miss  Peabody's  essay,  146-172 
passim;  Mead's  essay,  238-250  pas 
sim;  of  sorrow,  393,  403.  (See 
Church,  Religion,  etc.) 

Wright,  Henry  C. :  association  with 
Alcott,  59-64. 


TTOGA,  Hindoo  religion,  367, 
JL      Yogin,  in  India,  378. 


ZEXO:  a  new,  248  ;  allusion,  403. 
Zion,  Scriptural  allusions,  416. 
Zoology,  the  Fourth-of-July  of,  140. 
Zoroaster:  on  poetry,  179,   elevation, 
375. 


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